INDIANAPOLIS — If there was any lingering doubt, forget it.

The Patriots are Mike Vrabel’s team. Through and through.

He built the new coaching staff. He reorganized the top of the front office. Soon, he will remake the roster, and on Tuesday he told you it will take just six months for that roster to look unrecognizable from the one you last saw.

“I think what the roster looks like today is going to be vastly different than what it looks like in the end of August,” Vrabel said at the NFL Scouting Combine. “We’ve got a lot of time. The fit – the players will determine their role, just like we always say.”

Ironically enough, Vrabel appears to have done just that.

Armed with as much leverage as a head-coaching candidate could ever carry into an interview, Vrabel seems to have dictated to the Krafts last month the franchise would return to a version of the Belichickian power structure. The head coach is the alpha and omega once again in Foxboro, something Vrabel hinted at Tuesday when asked about roster control.

“Well, I wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be the head coach here if I wasn’t comfortable in my impact on the roster,” he said.

Not that he stopped there in his answer. Vrabel is wise enough to spread public credit around, and knows every press conference doubles as an opportunity to reinforce the message to those who report to you; which now apparently includes everyone in football operations.

“We want to continue to have great conversations with the personnel staff,” he continued, speaking about the front-office structure, “Me, with Stretch (Patriots vice president of football operations and strategy John Streicher), with (the) coaching (staff). We’re all just trying to find the ways to bring the right players in here.”

Streicher, by the way, is a walking, talking reminder of the Belichickian model. Working for Vrabel in Tennessee, he rose from special assistant to the head coach in 2018 to director of football administration five years later; the same title Belichick’s assistant, Berj Najarian, once held.

Streicher is well-regarded in league circles as a sharp thinker and master of game management, hence the new title in New England. On Tuesday, Streicher shadowed Vrabel during his brief combine media tour, much like a personal assistant would. Or as Vrabel later described him, an extension of the head coach; just as Najarian did for Belichick in countless ways over two-plus decades.

“(Streicher)’s meant a lot to me,” Vrabel said. “He’s meant a lot to the success that we had in Tennessee. His growth, in this business of NFL football, the connections that he makes with our staff and our players, and they know that he’s an extension of me. If they need to, maybe they don’t have a strong enough connection with me to say something, they’ll certainly be able to find an avenue with (Streicher) as a point of contact.”

But enough about the assistants. Let’s get to what matters.

Vrabel is here because the Patriots stink. Their roster and infrastructure rotted out for too long not to make sweeping changes, which the Patriots have. Multiple team sources expressed in Indianapolis that Vrabel has provided a much clearer vision compared to a year ago, when the franchise’s north star was simply reversing all things Belichick.

He’s detailed, clear and direct; specific in what he wants from the coaches and front office, and confident in the plans they’ve laid together on how to revitalize the roster via free agency and the draft.

“Our expectations aren’t going to change,” he said. “It’s going to be to win the division. It’s going to be to host home playoff games. It’s going to be to compete for championships. We’re never going to put a timetable or any sort of prediction on when that may happen. But it has to happen, and it’s going to start April 7 when our guys come in.”

Vrabel continued: “We’re going to have a program. We’re going to build a foundation. We’re going to give (fans) something to believe in and be proud of.”

After three straight losing seasons, pride is a feeling that has not resonated with the fan base in some time. Hope flickered last year, starting with Jerod Mayo’s own offseason comments and then a Week 1 win. But trouble sprouted early and often during the season until it became clear, even to ownership, he wasn’t ready for the job.

In reporting on the demise of the 2024 Patriots, one team source lamented how ownership could ever believe a first-time head coach would be capable of saving the franchise.

To fix their Mayo mistake, the Krafts have bet on a second-time head coach to be that savior.

Vrabel holds the power.

What will he do with it?