Mike Vrabel beat Bill Belichick at his own game in Titans playoff victory

The Tennessee Titans and head coach Mike Vrabel went into Foxborough on Saturday and beat the New England Patriots 20-13 in the AFC Wild Card

On a foggy night at Gillette Stadium, the student outclassed the old master.

Mike Vrabel’s Tennessee Titans knocked off Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots 20-13 on Saturday in their AFC Wild Card matchup, sending the former Patriots linebacker and his team to a matchup against the Baltimore Ravens next week in the Divisional round.

Vrabel spent eight seasons playing under Belichick in New England from 2001-08 and was part of three Super Bowl champions during the Patriots dynasty. But then Belichick jettisoned him to Kansas City in a Feb. 2009 tradein exchange for a second-round pick that became safety Patrick Chung.

Vrabel got his first chance to exact revenge last season when he beat his former head coach 34-10 in his first season on the Titans’ sideline. But Saturday’s matchup was on a much bigger stage. The Patriots had played in three straight Super Bowls and eight straight AFC Championship games. Not since the 2009 season have the Patriots failed to get past the Wild Card round.

That was the history Vrabel was up against in Foxborough, and he passed the test.

The Titans game plan was simple: get the ball to the NFL’s leading rusher, Derrick Henry, early and often. Henry gained 186 yards—the most by a running back in a postseason game since Ryan Grant had 201 for the Packers in 2007— on 34 carries as he continually wore down the Patriots’ defensive front.

The Titans rushed the ball 40 times on Saturday and dropped back to pass just 16 times, only the fifth time in the last 30 seasons a team had such a disparity between rushing attempts and passes in a postseason game. Quarterback Ryan Tannehill threw for just 72 yards in the Titans victory, the fewest by a winning quarterback in a playoff game since Baltimore’s Joe Flacco threw for 34 in the 2009 postseason. That Ravens victory was, coincidentally, the last time New England lost in the Wild Card round.

It was a sequence in the fourth quarter, however, with the Titans nursing a slim one-point lead, that Vrabel showed his mastery of strategy and the rule book that should make his teacher proud. There was 6:39 left on the clock when Tannehill fumbled the snap on a third-down play from New England’s 34-yard line.

By the time Titans punter Brett Kern got off a punt that went out of bounds at the Patriots 11, there was 4:44 remaining. In the meantime, Vrabel had his team take an intentional delay of game then false start, knowing that the play clock would reset after every play; the game clock doesn’t stop for penalties under there is under five minutes left. Belichick could do nothing but protest to the officials from the opposing sideline.

While other head coaches in the NFL continue to scratch their heads trying to figure out how to solve Belichick and the Patriots, it’s his former disciples who’ve gotten the better of the eight-time Super Bowl champ. Belichick is now 1-6 against opposing head coaches with close ties to him over the past two seasons, including 0-2 against Vrabel. He’s now lost to his former students three times in the last six weeks: Vrabel, Miami’s Brian Flores, and Houston’s Bill O’Brien.

As the clock wound down following a failed Patriots attempt at a miracle kickoff return, Vrabel rushing onto the field and quickly shook hands with his former coach. Few words were said between them. There didn’t need to be, for both men knew that the better coach on this night was the one not on the New England side of the field. Vrabel’s wide smile showed that, 11 years after Belichick traded him, he finally had the chance to get him back.

He didn’t disappoint. After all, he learned from the master.