The New England Patriots hired head coach Mike Vrabel this offseason to turn around the franchise and get them back to their glory days. Patriots' vice president of football operations and strategy is John "Stretch" Streicher. Streicher and Vrabel have a long history together, having coached alongside each other since 2011 at Ohio State.
Patriots' Most Important Figure Behind Mike Vrabel, 'Stretch' originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
The New England Patriots hired head coach Mike Vrabel this offseason to turn around the franchise and get them back to their glory days. However, another new face joined the Patriots, and his presence is just as important as Vrabel's.
Patriots' vice president of football operations and strategy is John "Stretch" Streicher. Streicher and Vrabel have a long history together, having coached alongside each other since 2011 at Ohio State. Vrabel was the Buckeyes' linebacker coach at the time, and Streicher was the team's equipment manager.
They quickly developed a very strong relationship that has blossomed into Vrabel holding the utmost respect for Streicher. "Stretch" spent time at Texas State as the director of football operations before holding multiple roles at James Madison, where he gave current Patriots' inside linebacker coach Zak Kuhr his start in coaching.
Then Streicher got his start in the NFL when Vrabel became the head coach for the Tennessee Titans. He worked in various roles during his time with Vrabel in Tennessee, but was let go when Vrabel was fired. Vrabel made all kinds of calls around the NFL trying to secure "Stretch" his next spot.
“He’s helped us win football games,” Vrabel said (h/t Boston Herald). “Point blank.”
Eventually, Los Angeles Rams' head coach Sean McVay called Streicher and the two struck a deal. Stretch served as the Rams' game management coordinator in 2024, and McVay quickly became the next coach who was amazed by Streicher's skills.
This is John Streicher.
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Get to know him because he’ll be running a team in the NFL in the future.
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“I think Stretch deserves a ton of credit for collaborating with our offensive and defensive coaches, and in the kicking game, which allowed us to handle a lot of those things better than maybe what I had in the previous seven years,” McVay said (h/t Boston Herald). “How does this team play? How do they want to win? How do we make sure that we don’t allow certain things to occur, or we want to prevent them from being able to do this?”
The Rams finished the 2024 regular season hot, winning nine of their last 12 games and making the playoffs. Los Angeles upset the Vikings in the wild-card round of the playoffs, and came a couple of plays away from beating the eventual Super Bowl champions when they failed to convert on fourth down against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Stretch's impact on the Rams wasn't taken for granted, and he received high praise from McVay, who had already established himself as one of the brightest young minds in the game. Now, Streicher is beginning to leave his own legacy.
“He understands the game from an All-22 perspective. He’s special as it relates to the situational stuff, and he’s got a great eye for talent. And so you put all those things together, and his big-picture understanding of the landscape of the league, offensive and defensive football and special teams, schematics and tactics, meshing all that together, he was a difference-maker for us,” McVay said (h/t Boston Herald). “And I loved being around him.”
When the Patriots hired Vrabel this offseason, you know who he called to bring back to his staff. Streicher now serves as the Patriots' vice president of football operations and strategy, and the duo is back together, this time in New England.
Vrabel and Stretch developed an unbreakable relationship, but the way Streicher has been able to build relationships with the coaches and players around him is one of the things Vrabel admires most.
“People trust the (expletive) out of him,” Vrabel said (h/t Boston Herald). “The players know if they say something to Stretch, he doesn’t come and tell me. And I think that’s why the coaches trust him, too. He’ll know how to say it to me.”
Vrabel may be the Patriots' head coach, but there's another guy in New England who most people don't know about, but certainly puts his imprint on the organization.
“There’s ownership, there’s Vrabel, and then Stretch,” one source said (h/t Boston Herald).
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Aug 7, 2025, where it first appeared.
Category: Football