New England Patriots
Williams is staying with the team, but the Patriots have yet to announce what his title will be.
Terrell Williams talks to reporters after a Patriots practice on Sept. 4, 2025. Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
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Former Patriots defensive coordinator Terrell Williams is staying with the team in a high-ranking role on Mike Vrabel’s staff after his battle with prostate cancer forced him to miss time last season.
It’s not quite clear what his title will be, Vrabel told reporters during this week’s NFL scouting combine.
“I don’t want to sit here and misspeak and figure out where that ends up,” Vrabel said. “I’ve got a plan for him, and I think that a vision is better than the title, necessarily. So I don’t want to say something and not have that be an accurate depiction of what ends up happening once we work through a lot of different things.”
Williams spent some time working virtually last spring following a health scare that was unrelated to his cancer diagnosis. He was in Foxborough for training camp and coached the season-opener against the Raiders, but eventually had to leave after receiving his diagnosis.
Inside linebackers coach Zak Kuhr became interim defensive coordinator, and the Patriots won 14 of their final 16 regular-season games. They allowed 18.8 points per game, the fourth-fewest in the NFL.
The Patriots removed the interim tag from Kuhr’s position during the offseason, naming him defensive coordinator.
“I think there are a lot of things in play there,” Vrabel said. “I think we’re just trying to figure out what’s best defensively for us, what’s best for the staff organizationally and being able to get everybody’s strengths where they need to be.”
“I know that Terrell [Williams] will be able to help me on a lot of things, help the football team, help the defense, continue to have a big role in that, and then just seeing where things progressed with Zak and the comfort level that we had there.”
Last season was Williams’s first season as a defensive coordinator. He spent the first 13 years of his career as a defensive line coach at various colleges including North Carolina A&T, Akron, and Purdue. He had multiple stints as a defensive line coach in the NFL, making stops with the Raiders, Dolphins, and Titans.
Vrabel named Williams assistant head coach during their time with the Titans, and Williams spent a year as the defensive run game coordinator for the Lions before he joined the Patriots.
The Patriots are set to begin their organized team activities on April 20th. As New England looks to build on its foundation, Vrabel will also lean on his assistants to generate new ideas that will help the program.
“At all levels of football, whether that’s in the collegiate level, at all different levels. Around the league, very few coaches come up with their own ideas, I’ll tell you that,” Vrabel said. “So, everybody wants to be a guru, but you look around and a lot of these things look the same, and there are a lot of good ideas. Like I tell them, it’s only crazy if it doesn’t work.”
Khari A. Thompson
Khari Thompson covers professional sports for Boston.com. Before joining the team in 2022, Khari covered college football for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.
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