When head coach Mike Vrabel announced his coordinator hires last January, Vrabel tabbed veteran coach Terrell Williams as the Patriots defensive coordinator.
After a long stint in college football, Williams is in his 14th season as an NFL assistant coach, including six seasons on Vrabel's staff in Tennessee, where he coached the defensive line and held the assistant head coach title for the 2023 season. Following the team announcing the hire, Vrabel spoke to Patriots.com on a scouting trip to the Senior Bowl about why the Patriots head coach tabbed Williams as his defensive coordinator.
"I like to invest in people, and [Williams] is one," Vrabel said. He's a great person, a great coach. He's got a large, wide reach on every player that he's ever been around, and he's made an impact. He was very instrumental in our success in Tennessee. The opportunity to be able to get [Williams] here, I felt like that was important."
Earlier this season, Vrabel announced that the longtime coach was diagnosed with prostate cancer following a prior health scare that was unrelated to the cancer that kept Williams away from the team in the spring. Obviously, the most important thing is that Williams wins his battle with cancer. Still, from a football standpoint, losing Williams due to an unfortunate health situation left a void on the coaching staff.
Since Week 2, the Patriots defense has turned to inside linebackers coach Zak Kuhr in a more leading role. Kuhr spent four seasons in various roles with Vrabel in Tennessee, and spent the year in between on the Giants staff working for DC Shane Bowen, who was also on Vrabel's staff with the Titans. Kuhr is now the Patriots de facto defensive coordinator, leading meetings and calling defensive plays. Kuhr credits Bowen, Vrabel, and Williams with his coaching development, which began in the NFL as a quality control coach for Vrabel with the Titans in 2020.
Since taking over as the primary play-caller, the Patriots have the ninth-ranked scoring defense (20.3 PPG) and rank ninth in expected points added (EPA) vs. the run, winning three of their last four games. Last week, New England pulled off an upset victory over the second-ranked scoring offense in the league, limiting the Bills to a season-low 20 points, with New England's defense holding Buffalo 13 points below its season average.
Coming off a massive win in Buffalo, Kuhr deserves credit for winning the chess match against Bills QB Josh Allen and offensive coordinator Joe Brady. Allen tied a season low by generating +0.16 expected points added per drop-back vs. the Patriots, and the Pats also shut down the Bills top-ranked rushing attack by holding RB James Cook to 3.3 yards per rush.
"Everybody over there has done a really good job as far as just organizationally. The communication to put the plan together, the efficiency to put a plan together, practice preparation and everything else," Vrabel said this week. "Again, there's no perfect call. I've said this millions of times. As long as our personnel is in the game, the call gets in there, it's decisive and one that the players understand, then it's a good call.
"We'll have good execution, and sometimes we won't have such great execution, but I do think that we haven't had any trouble with those. We haven't been pressed. We've been in two-minute situations. We've been in third down. We've stayed in personnel groups. We've changed personnel groups. I think Zak's doing a good job," Vrabel continued.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday at Gillette Stadium, Kuhr shared his thoughts on his expanded role and play-calling responsibilities.
"The process is going fine. The communication throughout the entire staff is really good, the whole defensive staff and [Vrabel]. A lot of alignment. The whole defensive staff is on the same page, collaborative approach, everyone has their ideas and the communication has been great," Kuhr told Patriots.com.
Along with speaking to Kuhr, Patriots assistants shed some light on the collaborative process behind the scenes to prepare the defense each week.
"Very organized. He does a great job of being able to connect the front, the middle part of our defense, and the backend as well. He's doing a great job," said safeties coach Scott Booker. "We each have our own areas that we study and then we get together to discuss every part of the game plan together. Zak does a great job of coordinating everything."
From the players' perspective, Patriots defenders describe Kuhr as a high-energy coach with clear messaging regarding game plans and corrections when reviewing film.
"Outstanding preparation and communication. [Kuhr] is clear and concise, and he knows what he wants the defensive film to look like, so he's able to coach in real time during practice. He's been doing a great job," said captain Robert Spillane, who wears the green dot as the Patriots on-field signal-caller.
"He's been doing his thing, man. I love the energy he brings to us, love him as a coach, I respect him. Obviously, he's been calling a helluva lot of good plays and we've been executing," starting safety Jaylinn Hawkins said. "Every week, we have missions on what we want to do, who we want to attack, and what we want to be as a defense."
"That's a huge task, that's a huge step up," LB Marte Mapu said. "I'm just glad he got the opportunity, and he's taking advantage of it right now. He's leaning on the support we have on the staff, but he's been doing great."
Christian Elliss also sang Kuhr's praises, saying, "Zak has done a great job play-calling. He's done a great job taking the leadership role that he has been given. I can't speak highly enough of him, and I hope he keeps doing the same thing."
Captain Marcus Jones explained that Kuhr and Williams were always tied at the hip while the defensive coordinator was in the building.
"Zak [Kuhr] and [Terrell Williams] have always been side-by-side when it comes to anything with the defense," Jones said. "When we're in the team meeting room going over stuff on defense, he lets us know the stuff that's good, what we need to keep improving on, and things that can get us beat. He always has a standard."
As Vrabel said, there isn't necessarily some secret sauce to being a good play-caller. Instead, it's about calling plays that the players are confident in and establishing an identity. For the Patriots, that identity is playing man coverage, especially with the return of All-Pro corner Christian Gonzalez. Last week, the Patriots played a 41 percent man coverage rate, while they also had several well-timed zone blitzes to keep the Bills off-balance.
For example, the Patriots time-up a corner blitz on this second down play in the fourth quarter. With the Bills in a condensed formation where all the flexed-out receivers are inside the numbers, it creates a short path to the quarterback for CB Carlton Davis. Davis comes unblocked off the edge on the overload blitz while the Pats play a six-man cover three zone defense in the backend, pressuring Allen into an incompletion.
"Something that we had put in that week, and he was confident in calling. He called it, and I wanted to show or prove to him that it could be a really good call for us moving forward," Davis said. "He's been doing a great job just having a feel for the game and when to call certain plays."
When the Patriots played man coverage, they trusted their corners to cover the Bills receivers with only single-high safety help in the deep part of the field. In this clip, the Pats also have a dedicated spy on Allen against Buffalo's empty formation, using LB Robert Spillane to contain Allen on a potential scramble. Allen throws the slot fade to WR Keon Coleman, and Jones breaks up the pass to get a key third-down stop.
In the run game, the Patriots used gap penetrations and run stunts to shut down the Bills zone and counter schemes. Above, the Pats run a stunt, where the defensive line slants down to take the inside gaps while Spillane and Tavai wrap around to the play-side. The scheme creates a 2-on-1 for the Pats linebackers against a leading fullback, where Spillane presses the blocker to compress space and Jahlani Tavai makes the run stuff.
Although he's doing well in a larger role, it has impacted how much time Kuhr can spend coaching the inside linebackers. It helps that the Patriots have veterans, such as Spillane and Jack Gibbens, who have been in this defense before. Also, while Kuhr handles coordinator duties, defensive assistant Vinny DePalma has stepped into a supporting role.
DePalma is in his second season with the Patriots after a solid playing career as a linebacker at Boston College, so he has experience playing the position he's now helping coach.
"Vinny has been a tremendous help. He's going to be a tremendous football coach; he is a tremendous football coach. There's definitely more on his plate now, and it's helping us out. The guys respond to it well, and he's been great. Only onward and upward," said Kuhr.
On a human level, Williams' cancer diagnosis is an unfortunate situation. It's clear how much the person and the coach mean to people in the building, from the head coach down. Williams is a terrific coach and a galvanizing figure lauded for his people skills – he has the love and prayers of everyone in the organization.
That said, the Patriots still have to play football games, and someone had to fill the large shoes left behind by Williams. So far, Kuhr has been up to the task, without any major procedural issues and tangible evidence that he's a capable play-caller from a scheme perspective. Although he doesn't officially have the title of defensive coordinator, it's a testament to Kuhr and the rest of the staff that the Patriots are weathering the absence of Williams over the last four games.
New England's defense needs to continue stacking good performances, starting with Sunday's trip to New Orleans to face the Saints in Week 6.
