The Celtics' Joe Mazzulla (center) and his stepson, Michael Holden, visited with Mike Vrabel (left) at Patriots training camp in July.
The Celtics' Joe Mazzulla (center) and his stepson, Michael Holden, visited with Mike Vrabel (left) at Patriots training camp in July.Barry Chin/Globe Staff
Mike Vrabel’s Patriots keep proving themselves and proving doubters wrong. What Vrabel proved last Sunday in a victory that knighted the Patriots as the NFL’s first 10-win team and extended their renaissance to nine straight wins was that the only thing he’s stubbornly sticking to is winning. He’s not Joe Mazzulla.
Vrabel’s philosophies are flexible, not steel-willed tenets requiring full fidelity or stone-carved coaching commandments not to be questioned. His team can win in more than one philosophical fashion.
Going rogue by contemporary coaching methods and taking into account … gasp … the human element and the context of the contest, Vrabel deviated from analytics and his customary aggressiveness. He ordered his team to kick a 19-yard field goal on fourth and goal from the Cincinnati 1 with 5:55 left, putting the Patriots up by 10 points, 23-13. Those points loomed large when the host Bengals, trailing, 26-20, reached the Patriots 26 and field goal range with 33 seconds left.
If the Patriots had passed up that short field goal and failed on fourth and goal, overtime would’ve beckoned.
In the third quarter, the Patriots spun their wheels on a first and goal from Cincinnati’s 5-yard line, saddled with a pointless possession, literally and figuratively. Counting penalties, they ran nine snaps, including six from the 1, and found the goal line to be an invisible fence against the league’s worst defense. New England came up as empty as an outdoor skating rink in July.
Following a failed tush push on third and goal from the 1 in the fourth, Vrabel showed he’s not an intractable ideologue. He took the easy 3. Surprising for several reasons, one of them being the Patriots entered the game with the highest fourth-down conversion rate (13 for 16, 81.3 percent) in the NFL.
“I think competitive people want to do the right thing and help our team win in any situation. It doesn’t necessarily always mean going for it,” said offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels on Friday.
McDaniels has been an NFL head coach twice and wrestled with these decisions. He praised Vrabel’s situational feel for decision-making.
“I have zero concerns about him making those choices because I think he has an incredible understanding of our team, where we’re at, what kind of game it is, what do we need to do to win the game,” said McDaniels. “It’s not about having some kind of blind bravado or anything like that. … He’s got a great feel for it.
“So, I trust Mike and what he’s doing implicitly in every situation. I thought he made a great call there Sunday.”
Yes, he did, and he had to behave counterintuitively to his preferred identity to do it. But there was zero hesitation and no ego when the time came to deviate.
Hear that, Joe?
The juxtaposition between the tack that Vrabel took when confronted with a challenge to his coaching philosophy in Cincy and Mazzulla’s last season in the playoffs is unavoidable.
We know Mazzulla likes to take the 3-pointer. The Celtics coach follows his philosophical conviction regarding that shot to the end of the Earth and, sometimes, to the end of the chances of winning. Case in point, last year’s Eastern Conference semifinals series against the New York Knicks.
The Celtics fired away into oblivion as they blew 20-point second-half leads at home in Games 1 and 2. Memorably, in Game 1, the Celtics attempted 19 of their 20 third-quarter shots from three.
You can’t even ask Mazzulla about his 3-point idolatry without him growing indignant or asking why he must explain it again. Or having the talented coach refer to the old-fashioned 2-point shot as a psychological crutch of sorts.
On a recent appearance on “Zolak & Bertrand” on 98.5 The Sports Hub, Mazzulla provided a window into his mantra.
“In the course of a long season, your job is to eliminate emotion and literally stick to the process of what goes into winning,” he said. “You have to teach your team that.”
He finds comfort in knowing he’s taking the correct approach over the long haul — sticking to a process with an expected high probability of success over a large sample size. But that sometimes sacrifices the game that’s winnable right in front of you.
Vrabel demonstrated he understands that. He’ll do the opposite of what he believes in if it gives his team the best chance of winning. That’s not easy for any coach.
“It’s like a tug-of-war inside yourself sometimes,” said McDaniels.
This is not to pick on Mazzulla or to suggest he’s not a good coach. As Doc Rivers would say, there’s a championship banner in the rafters at TD Garden with his name on it. But his super glue adherence to his basketball belief system is both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.
There’s a brotherhood of Boston sports coaches. A select few who know how stressful, draining, and rewarding leading our local teams can be and bond through that.
Vrabel attended a Celtics practice last February at Mazzulla’s invitation. The Celtics coach and his stepson, who plays football for Xaverian High, were guests of Vrabel’s at Patriots training camp in July. Mazzulla raved about what he learned from sitting in the coaches’ meetings.
He could learn a little more about adaptability over intractability.
In fairness, there are some signs of Mazzulla’s malleability. Last year, the Celtics set the NBA regular-season record for 3-point attempts per game, an unabashed 48.2, obliterating the mark of the 2018-19 Rockets (45.4).
The Celtics were averaging 42.9 attempts entering Saturday, ranking third in the NBA, though that’s still higher than in their championship season of 2023-24 (42.5).
In July, Vrabel said that he and Mazzulla are “probably different personalities.” You’re more alike than you realize — two edgy, smart, super-competitive coaches. But the approaches are different.
Vrabel flashed an understanding that sometimes game flow, the situation, the human condition, and emotions take precedence over prescribed play style or almighty analytics.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at christopher.gasper@globe.com. Follow him @cgasper and on Instagram @cgaspersports.