The New England Patriots found their head coach. Now Mike Vrabel has to find the guy to lead his offense.

New England's hiring of its former linebacker (and six year head coach of the Tennessee Titans) is a common sense move that brings a veteran playcaller with a track record of success to the sideline after a tumultuous 2024. The Patriots have won eight total games the last two seasons, had the league's worst offensive line and are loaded with WR3 and WR4 types at wideout without a sure-thing receiver in the bunch.

Despite all that, Vrabel may also have the most exciting opportunity for any coordinator to take over in 2025.

Drake Maye's explosive rookie season and a league-high $120 million in estimated salary cap space give New England a sturdy foundation from which to build. The Patriots have the fourth overall pick in this spring's NFL Draft and four selections inside the top 90. If 2024 coordinator Alex Van Pelt isn't retained, this will be an opportunity for a rising star -- or a tarnished veteran -- to build an offense from the ground up with an electric dual-threat quarterback and hand-picked free agent and rookie contributors.

Who would be under consideration? And who should be? Let's take a look at some candidates.

1. Josh McDaniels, former Patriots offensive coordinator (and Raiders, Broncos head coach)

The first man up guided Tom Brady to five Super Bowls in two stints as an assistant in New England. While McDaniels's star crashes and burns each time he's given the chance to be a head coach -- both the Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders fired him before he could finish a second season -- he remains a useful playbook architect.

What would his value be to a Patriots team that's glaringly different than the one he left in 2022? Any McDaniels interview would have to revolve around how he'd maximize the "throw long/run hard" traits of his young QB. Maye's skillset is different than Brady's. He ran for 9.0 yards per scramble, giving him significantly more utility on the ground than an aging and increasingly statuesque Brady (or even Mac Jones, who McDaniels coached in 2021).

But McDaniels would also serve a secondary purpose: scapegoat. If the gears turn slowly in New England he can be thrown under the bus to placate impatient management. The expectations for him would be low, yet still higher in Foxborough than anywhere else the veteran coordinator might catch on.

2. Tommy Rees, Cleveland Browns offensive assistant

Rees and Vrabel spent 2024 together with the Browns -- Rees as a pass game specialist and tight ends coach and Vrabel as a consultant who worked mainly with those tight ends. Bringing in an offensive assistant from the league's worst passing offense (by a significant margin!) seems suspect at face value. Then you process the Deshaun Watson and Dorian Thompson-Robinson of it all and everything seems more reasonable.

Rees has served as offensive coordinator at both Alabama and his alma mater Notre Dame. In 2023 he turned Jalen Milroe into one of the FBS's top five most efficient quarterbacks through the air and a chain-moving threat on the ground. At Notre Dame he bridged the gap between the Brian Kelly and Marcus Freeman eras while making Ian Book and Jack Coan starting quarterbacks capable of winning double-digit games.

Rees is proficient in motion-based offensive attacks that can lighten the load for a rising quarterback. He's also a believer in establishing the run, which is having an NFL revival thanks to big seasons in places like Baltimore, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Green Bay. At only 32 years old he's likely the youngest candidate on Vrabel's wish list, but could bring innovative ideas to New England.

3. Tim Kelly, New York Giants tight ends coach

Kelly and Vrabel also have history. They both served as members of Bill O'Brien's staff with the Houston Texans. Kelly rose up the ranks to offensive coordinator there and survived O'Brien's firing but not David Culley's a year later. Vrabel hired him in Tennessee, where he served as passing game coordinator in 2022 and OC in 2023.

That works in Kelly's favor. His recent results do not. He's been unable to elevate young passers; his last two offenses ranked 32nd and 28th in yards gained between his last season in Houston and lone year designing the Titans' playbook. He spent 2024 with the Giants, which was similarly frustrating.

Maye is closer to Deshaun Watson, the since-disgraced quarterback accused of more than 20 counts of sexual misconduct dating to his time in Houston who has been the league's 38th-best passer since becoming a Brown, than Davis Mills, Will Levis or Drew Lock. That's notable because Watson's finest season -- a 4,823 yard, 33 touchdown campaign in the midst of a terrible 4-12 season that resulted in O'Brien's dismissal -- came under Kelly in 2020.

4. Nick Caley, Los Angeles Rams passing game coordinator

Caley has two decades of assistant coaching experience under his belt. Importantly, that includes eight years of apprenticeship under Belichick in New England (eventually settling in as tight ends coach) and two seasons with Sean McVay in Los Angeles.

This leaves him with a wealth of experience with relatively immobile Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks and less with young passers. Belichick opted to give the playbook to Joe Judge and Matt Patricia for Mac Jones's 2022 NFL season rather than his rising positional coach, which could either be his statement on Caley's offense-building capabilities or merely the trait of an aging coach being given too much power and getting stupid with it.

Regardless of why he may have been passed over, the Patriots tried to right this wrong under Mayo in 2024. They reportedly offered Caley coordinator duties and a massive raise, only to be turned down. Would New England try again with a new head coach who has no preexisting relationship to the longtime Belichick assistant?

5. Josh McCown, Minnesota Vikings quarterback coach

McCown only has two seasons of coaching under his belt, but nearly two decades as a journeyman gunslinger has left him well attuned to the machinations of NFL offenses. His star as a quarterback sherpa is on the rise thanks to his work coaxing a truly shocking, and awesome, season out of Sam Darnold -- a player he once backed up as a 39-year-old with the New York Jets.

McCown has long been considered a coaching candidate despite his short resume. He's never been a play caller outside his own audibles, but he's helped keep Darnold on track even as slumps threatened to restore him to "useful backup, pray you don't need him for more than a few games" status. Minnesota uses a healthy diet of play-action to get the ball into the hands of high-level playmakers, which are two things the Patriots did not have in 2024 (New England's 14.8 percent play-action rate was 31st in the NFL, ahead of only the Atlanta Falcons, who couldn't use play action because Kirk Cousins can barely move).

That would make a jump up the coaching tree tricky. McCown would be a recognizable name and may be a rising star in coaching circles. But his two stints as a quarterbacks coach -- he was tasked with getting a rookie Bryce Young up to speed in 2023 -- have had wildly different outcomes.

6. Bonus! Eric Morris, North Texas Mean Green head coach

Morris left Incarnate Word, where he found presumptive top three 2025 NFL Draft pick Cam Ward, for an offensive coordinator job at Washington State. Would he be willing to make a similar gamble by leaving North Texas after two seasons to jump to the pros? It feels like a longshot, but Jeff Hafley made that move last offseason when he left the top job at Boston College behind to design the Green Bay Packers defense.

With quarterback Chandler Morris now at the University of Virginia, there's some appeal to starting fresh. Morris is an air raid disciple, having played wideout for Mike Leach at Texas Tech. The younger Morris (no relation) led all Group of 5 quarterbacks in passing yards and touchdowns for a team that put up more than 33 points per game in his first year in Denton. His coach could have a similar uplifting effect on a downfield savant like Maye.

There's no connection between Morris and the Patriots. New England has given no indication it may reach out. But there's room for an outside the box hire here. That probably won't be Eric Morris, but someone *like* Morris could not only be in play, but the guy to revamp a moribund Pats offense.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: 6 Patriots offensive coordinator candidates including (sigh) Josh McDaniels