Patriots great Matthew Slater reportedly won’t remain on Mike Vrabel’s staff
"He helped around as a coach, and is a great mentor, follower -- in all aspects of life he was awesome.”
Former New England Patriots special-teams ace Matthew Slater reportedly won’t be sticking around on Mike Vrabel’s staff moving forward.
According to ESPN’s Mike Reiss, Slater’s 2024 role as “the special assistant to former head coach Jerod Mayo” is a position that will not carry over into 2025 with Vrabel.
Slater, a three-time Super Bowl champion and five-time All-Pro selection, announced his retirement at the end of the 2023 season — but stuck around last season to assist Mayo in his first (and only season) as New England’s head coach.
Speaking before the start of the 2024 season, Mayo mapped out some of the responsibilities that Slater took on with New England’s revamped coaching staff.
“He is an advisor for me on all things football, and honestly, the things off the field,” Mayo said. “He is a very smart individual and I would say we see most things the same way. And at the same time, I know he is a guy that will be honest with me. Once you put the head coach hat on, it is hard to find people that are honest with you.”
Even though Mayo and the Patriots struggled throughout the 2024 season, New England QB Drake Maye was complimentary of Slater and his role on the team’s staff while speaking to Sirius XM Radio during the Pro Bowl over the weekend.
“I think Matthew Slater was great,” Maye told Amber Theoharis and Kirk Morrison, as transcribed by MassLive’s Mark Daniels. “He was an All-Pro for all [those] years, a great, great guy to have in the locker room. Great guy. He helped around as a coach, and is a great mentor, follower – in all aspects of life he was awesome.”
While Vrabel has made sweeping changes to New England’s coaching staff since taking over last month, Patriots veterans like Jabrill Peppers stressed last spring that having a recently-retired player like Slater on the staff offered plenty of value to the team.
“As long as I get to bounce some knowledge off of him and see him around the locker room, having Slate in the locker room, he uplifted spirits and always knew what to say,” Peppers said in April. “I’m definitely happy we kept him in the building.”
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