BREAKING: Patriots Hire Mike Vrabel, Eliminating Potential Ben Johnson Destination

One team just fell out of the Ben Johnson sweepstakes.

The New England Patriots officially hired former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel on Sunday, making them the first team to hire a coach in this year's cycle.

The Patriots were one of four teams that were in the running for Johnson, the star Detroit Lions offensive coordinator who has been the hottest name on the coachign cycle for two years now.

The other three teams are of course the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Las Vegas Raiders and the Chicago Bears. And now that the Patriots are out of the running, the other three teams jockeying for position on Johnson's wish list all just saw their chances of landing him increase.

The Patriots figured to be a strong option for Johnson considering they have a promising young quarterback on a rookie deal in Drake Maye, plenty of cap space and a top-5 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Instead, though, it always seemed as if the Patriots were leaning toward hiring Vrabel to replace Jerod Mayo.

Now, Johnson will look to land with the Jaguars, Raiders or Bears, or instead opt to return to the Lions sidelines for another season.

For the Jaguars, Vrabel never interviewed for Jacksonville's head coach vacancy and did not appear to be a major factor in the beginning of the Jaguars search, which has included Johnson and nine other candidates.

The Jaguars interviewed four candidates over the weekend, while the other six can not be interviewed until after this weekend's slate of playoff games. The Jaguars can begin to interview most of their candidates on Tuesday, though Brian Flores can not be spoken with until Wednesday at the earliest.

"The first thing we have to do is identify who the head coach is and then bring in a staff. As Shad mentioned, there's a lot of good people in this building," Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke said on Monday.

"From the coaches on through personnel and all the support staff so we don’t need to fix everything we just need to fix some things. I think identifying that person that can come in and then sit down with the staff that we put together around him, and really take a look at the roster again. We do this every year. Take a hard look at the roster, identify who the players are that you have to put in a position to win games for you and then surround them the best you can with free agents, and or draft picks. The process isn’t' going to change, we just have to do things a little different, a little better.”

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