FOXBORO — Patriots inside linebackers coach Zak Kuhr will call defensive plays Sunday against the Dolphins in coordinator Terrell Williams’ absence, head coach Mike Vrabel announced Friday.
Vrabel said he’ll have more information on Williams, who’s on a [health-related leave](https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/09/10/patriots-dc-terrell-williams-to-take-another-health-related-leave/) for the second time this year, next week, and then the Patriots will “go from there.”
“I’ll help him like I always do,” Vrabel said of Kuhr. “But I’m excited for that. I think we’ve been prepared all week for that, for the preparation, for the game-planning, all the phases of first and second down and what this team wants to try to do, and how we want to try to defend them, and the keys and plan on third down or short yardage in the red zone. So, it was a good week of preparation. Appreciate the show team doing what they did to try to give us the shifts and the motions, and it’s hard to recreate that speed, but I felt like they tried to do everything that they could for us to get us ready.”
Kurh took over defensive coordinator duties in the spring, when Williams was out for an undisclosed health issue. Vrabel said Wednesday that he and Kurh would work with the defensive staff this week.
It’s a major ascension for Kuhr, who worked last season with the Giants as a defensive assistant. He was an assistant inside linebackers coach under Vrabel with the Titans from 2021 to 2023 after serving as a quality control coach in 2020. Kurh has known Vrabel since they crossed over at Ohio State in 2011 and 2012. He went on to serve as Texas State’s offensive coordinator in 2018 before working at Texas in 2019 and moving to the NFL in 2020.
“Watched him work at Ohio State, and when we were able to get him to Tennessee, how quickly he translated that knowledge to defense,” Vrabel said. “How quickly he learned defense, and what an asset he was defensively for us, especially coming from some of the college game as some of those trends started to make their way to the National Football League and some of the spread and the RPO or things like that. He really became an asset for us, defensively.
“He worked, did our did our red-zone stuff for us in Tennessee, and then continued to grow, continued to understand what we were doing. And then watching him work in the spring and work in front of the guys and prepare him in the spring through training camp until Terrell was back. That’s what I saw. I saw a lot of maturity, a lot of growth, but also a lot of knowledge.”
Kurh and other defensive coaches talked Thursday about taking a [collaborative approach](https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/09/11/patriots-coaches-taking-collaborative-approach-without-defensive-coordinator/amp/) in Williams’ absence. Kuhr said he continued his duties as an inside linebackers coach in practice.