4 top options for Patriots open offensive coordinator position

2 hours ago 1

On Monday, the New England Patriots officially announced Mike Vrabel's hiring as the 16th head coach in franchise history, following Jerod Mayo's firing after a 4-13 season.

With a new head coach running things, New England will now need to fill out the staff under Vrabel, and he'll obviously have a big hand in those decisions.

While we don't know who the Patriots will interview for these positions, we can talk about some of the top options, and today, we're going to focus on the offensive coordinator role.

Here are four coaches New England could/should consider for the job:

Josh McDaniels

McDaniels is the only coach we know is on Vrabel's list of candidates after the new head coach revealed that on Tuesday.

McDaniels was with the Patriots from 2001-08, and after short stints with the Denver Broncos and St. Louis Rams, he returned to New England from 2012-21. He worked with Tom Brady for years and got the best out of Mac Jones during his rookie season.

McDaniels and Vrabel obviously crossed over with the Patriots, as the latter was a linebacker for eight seasons while the former coached in New England.

Nick Caley

Caley started off as a college coach, working at John Carroll, Akron, Auburn, Iowa State, Eastern Illinois, Arkansas and Florida Atlantic before joining the Patriots staff in 2015 as an offensive assistant.

He worked in New England until 2022, eventually becoming the team's tight ends coach.

In 2023, Caley left the Patriots to accept a lateral move under Sean McVay with the Los Angeles Rams in 2023 and picked up the passing-game coordinator title this last year.

New England had interest in bringing Caley back as offensive coordinator last year, but Caley reportedly turned down a contract offer.

Mike LaFleur

LaFleur also started off as a college coach, working at Elmhurst, St. Joseph's (Indiana) and Davidson before making the jump to the NFL as an intern with the Cleveland Browns in 2014.

Since then, he's coached with the Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, New York Jets and Los Angeles Rams, holding the offensive coordinator role in his last two stops.

While LaFleur is currently the Rams offensive coordinator, accepting a job with New England could allow him to call plays. He would also be the second LaFleur to coach under Vrabel, as Matt LaFleur was Vrabel's first offensive coordinator with the Tenessee Titans.

Todd Downing

Downing has coached with the Minnesota Vikings, St. Louis Rams, Detroit Lions, Buffalo Bills, Oakland Raiders, Tennessee Titans and New York Jets since 2005.

The 44-year-old actually coached under Vrabel during his time in Tennessee, serving as the team's tight ends coach from 2019-20 and then as their offensive coordinator from 2021-22.