Mike Vrabel

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Truth be told, Tom Brady would rather toss a Super Bowl touchdown pass to almost anyone but Mike Vrabel. At least that's the way Vrabel described their relationship last night after the Patriots linebacker cameoed as a receiver and snagged a touchdown pass from Brady in a second straight Super Bowl. "Tom gets mad at me in practice and won't throw it to me," Vrabel said after his acrobatic catch helped the Patriots stop the Eagles, 24-21, for their third Super Bowl victory in four years.

FOXBOROUGH - Larry Izzo didn't see it. The former Patriots special teams captain didn't understand how anyone could characterize last night's Super Bowl as a rematch from four years ago in Glendale, Ariz. "It's not a rematch, to be honest with you," said Izzo. "Because I don't see Rodney Harrison. I don't see Tedy Bruschi. I don't see Mike Vrabel. I'm not playing in the game. So there's a lot of change since the last time the two teams played each other in the Super Bowl. "It's different teams.

HOUSTON -- It is now OK to place the New England Patriots in a historical sentence that few teams are able to utter. You can call them one of the greatest teams of all time, and you can say it without apologizing or blinking or giving a monologue on this era of free agency. The Patriots are great. Swallow it straight, with no chaser. A few things became obvious when the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXVIII last night, 32-29 over the Carolina Panthers: Adam Vinatieri is one of the best clutch athletes New England sports fans have ever seen.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Legacy Place isn't just a nifty shopping center in Dedham. More than 900 miles away it's at the center of what Super Bowl XLVI means for Patriots coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. This is a game of Wilforkian proportions for everyone associated with the Patriots. But for Brady and Belichick, hoisting that elusive fourth Lombardi Trophy would be a postscript to their greatest failure -- Super Bowl XLII -- and a capstone to their remarkable collective curriculum vitae.

The New England Patriots are said to be hard-working, versatile, intelligent, self-effacing, single-minded in pursuit of victory, and, cost-efficient. Mike Vrabel is all these things. Mike Vrabel is the quintessential New England Patriot. He is not a star. Offensive coordinators do not spend time obsessing about Mike Vrabel. It is very unlikely any opposing coach has ever spiced up a meeting by saying, "Goldangit! We've got to account for that Vrabel guy!" In case Mike Vrabel didn't know who he was supposed to be, the national media is always around to remind him. One such account following...

Mike Vrabel retired after 14 seasons in the NFL and will be the new linebackers coach at Ohio State. (Jim Davis / Globe file) By Christopher L. Gasper, Boston.com Columnist Mike Vrabel epitomized what it meant to be a Patriot during the Belichick-Brady era. You can put him up there with Troy Brown, Tedy Bruschi and Kevin Faulk as players who embody the essence of the Patriot Way. He was a tough, smart, versatile football player....

Mike Vrabel, the versatile, tough, smart linebacker and sometime tight end who came to personify the “Patriot Way’’ during New England’s three Super Bowl winning years, announced his retirement yesterday after 14 NFL seasons. There had been several reports over the weekend that he would hang up his shoulder pads to begin his coaching career at his alma mater, Ohio State. He has joined the Buckeyes staff and will work with the linebackers under new coach, and Vrabel’s former roommate in Columbus, Luke Fickell.

FOXBOROUGH - Jerod Mayo yanked off his helmet and struggled to catch his breath. His grandfather, Walter Johnson, a chief master sergeant in the Air Force, once cautioned him, “Everything hurts a little more when you are losing.’’ On a brisk evening last November, with the Patriots trailing the New York Jets in their own stadium, Mayo understood what he meant. Six weeks earlier against San Francisco, Mayo had torn up his left shoulder making a tackle. The injury not only lingered, it worsened every time he made contact with another football player, which was at...

The Kansas City Chiefs changed the course of Matt Cassel's career by injuring Patriots franchise quarterback Tom Brady in the 2008 season opener, and now the Patriots have sent the franchise-tagged Cassel to Kansas City to be the Chiefs' franchise quarterback. Striking a deal with former Patriots vice president of player personnel Scott Pioli, the Patriots traded Cassel and linebacker Mike Vrabel to Kansas City in exchange for the Chiefs' second-round pick (the 34th overall selection)

The first time, it was a magical mystery tour that required a suspension of disbelief. The Patriots as champions? Once would be enough for a lifetime. But twice in three years? "There will never be a bigger win," receiver Troy Brown declared, after his star-spangled teammates and Adam Vinatieri’s gilded instep had vanquished the Carolina Panthers with four ticks left on the clock to win Super Bowl XXXVIII, 32-29. "This one is even better than the first. Ten times better than the first.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Truth be told, Tom Brady would rather toss a Super Bowl touchdown pass to almost anyone but Mike Vrabel. At least that's the way Vrabel described their relationship last night after the Patriots linebacker cameoed as a receiver and snagged a touchdown pass from Brady in a second straight Super Bowl. "Tom gets mad at me in practice and won't throw it to me," Vrabel said after his acrobatic catch helped the Patriots stop the Eagles, 24-21, for their third Super Bowl victory in four years.

HOUSTON -- Groundhog Day. Adam Vinatieri's 41-yard field goal with four seconds remaining gave the New England Patriots a 32-29 victory over the Carolina Panthers last night in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Yogi Berra would have called it "Deja vu all over again. " It was all so familiar . . . Vinatieri kicking the game-winner . . . quarterback Tom Brady winning the Most Valuable Player Award . . . coach Bill Belichick and owner Bob Kraft hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy while Patriot players hugged and brushed confetti off one another.

HOUSTON -- And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why a couple of billion people around the globe are hooked on sport. Hype doesn't matter. Prognostications don't matter. Talk doesn't matter. When the game starts, performance is all that matters, and the two teams playing in Super Bowl XXXVIII gave everything they could possibly summon, sometimes from who-knows-where, to produce what may very well go down in history as the greatest of all Super Bowls. Even Bill Belichick took note.

HOUSTON -- It is now OK to place the New England Patriots in a historical sentence that few teams are able to utter. You can call them one of the greatest teams of all time, and you can say it without apologizing or blinking or giving a monologue on this era of free agency. The Patriots are great. Swallow it straight, with no chaser. A few things became obvious when the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXVIII last night, 32-29 over the Carolina Panthers: Adam Vinatieri is one of the best clutch athletes New England sports fans have ever seen.

NEW ORLEANS - Patriots owner Bob Kraft attended NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue's press conference Friday afternoon, but he wasn't as focused as he should have been on the topics of the day. That's because Kraft and his son Jonathan couldn't take their eyes off the championship trophy that was conveniently placed next to the commissioner. "Neither one of us touched it," Kraft said last night, still basking in the afterglow of his franchise's first Super Bowl victory. ‘'But now that I've held it, I've got to tell you: this trophy is a lot lighter than I thought it...

NEW ORLEANS - There was so little time left. A day, a game, a season, a lifetime compressed into seven tiny seconds and one momentous kick. "Thinking?" said Adam Vinatieri, his kicking shoe suitable for bronzing, a showcase certain to be cleared in the Sports Museum of New England. ‘'I didn't really have much time to think. " It will be the kick that sails on for eternity in the minds of all Patriots fans - Vinatieri's 48-yard boot with 0:07 on the clock Sunday night inside the Superdome that clinched Super Bowl XXXVI for the Patriots.

NEW ORLEANS - There was so little time left. A day, a game, a season, a lifetime compressed into seven tiny seconds and one momentous kick. "Thinking?" said Adam Vinatieri, his kicking shoe suitable for bronzing, a showcase certain to be cleared in the Sports Museum of New England. ‘'I didn't really have much time to think. " It will be the kick that sails on for eternity in the minds of all Patriots fans - Vinatieri's 48-yard boot with 0:07 on the clock Sunday night inside the Superdome that clinched Super Bowl XXXVI for the Patriots.

By Greg A. Bedard, Globe Staff Just two changes since Saturday's version, and even those are very tentative. Here's what we have going into tonight's exhibition finale: Thoughts : For this version, we opted to keep RB Sammy Morris over third TE Will Yeatman . We did that because there's just too much unknown with the health of Shane Vereen , especially, and Stevan Ridley...

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. - Under a rule tweak this year, teams can have 46 of their 53 players active on game day. When the Patriots announced Sunday night that five players had been downgraded to out, it left few question marks as to who might be inactive for last night's opener against the Dolphins. But when the list came out, there was a bit of a surprise as second-year linebacker Brandon Spikes was a scratch. Though Spikes missed time during the preseason with an ankle injury, he presumably practiced fully in the days leading up to the game, and was not listed on the injury report.

It's been shouted far and wide, on sports talk radio to Internet message boards: where is the Patriots' pass rush? It has been a hot topic for a couple of years, as New England slipped from fourth in the NFL in yards allowed in 2007 to 10th in 2008 to 11th in 2009. But last year was the nadir. Not only were the Patriots 25th in total defense, they were 30th in passing yards allowed and opposing quarterbacks completed 63.5 percent of their passes. And they were dead last in one of the more important statistics: third-down defense, with...