Picture the perfect coach for Drake Maye.

Obviously, he has a history of developing quarterbacks.

He’s worked as a coordinator before.

He’s shown flexibility and creativity with his scheme, evolving year-to-year with the talent available and modern trends.

And he’s not a flight risk; someone who could leave for a head-coaching job in two or three years and interrupt whatever progress Maye and the offense make while the franchise climbs back to relevancy.

For the Patriots, Josh McDaniels was as close to perfect as perfect gets. Their first choice, the only choice.

Not the young hotshot, nor the rising star. Just the right choice at the right time, same as Vrabel.

Together, they should restore the franchise to a baseline level of competency the Pats haven’t seen since McDaniels left in January 2022. For three straight years, poor coaching and worse offense have tied a hand behind the franchise’s back.

Remember the Matt Patricia experiment of 2022? The dysfunctional staff Bill Belichick stitched together around Bill O’Brien followed and sank them both in 2023? And who could forget Alex Van Pelt and Co, who hardly proved to be an upgrade despite receiving the best quarterback play the Patriots had seen in at least three years, maybe five?

Now generally, running to your past for answers to present-day problems is a good way to conflate short-term comfort for long-term solutions. But the Patriots have threaded the needle here, and are building real momentum toward a legitimate rebound.

Vrabel was step one. McDaniels is step two. Every step hereafter will be vital to whether they will move forward in 2025 or spin in circles.

For now, these hires mark progress. Credibility. A reason to believe in the Patriots again, not merely hope.

Remember a year ago, when Jerod Mayo, Van Pelt and new defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington took over with five years of combined experience in their respective positions; all of which belonged to Van Pelt? In fact, Mayo had coached for just five years total before taking the head job, and his coordinators had 26 years of experience pacing NFL sidelines.

Fast forward, and their replacements – Vrabel, McDaniels and new defensive coordinator Terrell Williams – arrive with two decades of experience working in these jobs. Together, they boast more than 45 seasons of NFL coaching experience, most of which belongs to McDaniels.

Don’t forget McDaniels oversaw Tom Brady’s best seasons in New England, coordinated three Super Bowl-winning offenses and evolved his system from a spread attack to a two-tight end operation and power running machine. He developed a young Matt Cassel, Jimmy Garoppolo and Mac Jones. Without him, Jones’s career has collapsed, and Cassel and Garoppolo both proved unfit to carry teams the way they seemed capable of doing in New England.

The 48-year-old McDaniels is not, of course, the second coming of Bill Walsh, and his disastrous head-coaching tenures in Denver and Las Vegas are earned black marks on his resume. But a head coach’s job compares to a coordinator’s like a high school principal to an English department head; one oversees the entire school, while the other engages in hands-on teaching every day and sets the course work for the rest of his colleagues.

Over McDaniels’ last season as an offensive coordinator, the Pats finished sixth in scoring despite starting a rookie quarterback every game. Then McDaniels went 9-16 with the Raiders. The man makes for a terrible principal, but he sure knows his Shakespeare.

The opposite could be said for Vrabel. During his only season as a coordinator at any level, Vrabel captained a Texans defense that allowed a league-high 436 points in 2017. The next year, as Tennessee’s head coach, he led the Titans to their first of four straight winning seasons.

Both coaches have returned to their rightful roles in New England, where it’s important to remember one more thing.

McDaniels was not hired away because of his work with Brady. In 2009, he accepted the Broncos’ head-coaching job after the Patriots went 10-5 in Cassel’s starts as an injury replacement. Thirteen years later, he left for Las Vegas after developing Jones into a Pro Bowl alternate.

Now, this prodigal Patriot is here to stay.

Just imagine what he might do with Maye.