John Streicher isn’t the most famous part of Mike Vrabel’s regime, but he’s one of the most important. Not only that, he’s garnered a great amount of respect from certain corners of football.

On Thursday, the Boston Herald’s Andrew Callahan published an in-depth profile on the man known as “Stretch.” In it, Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay made a bold prediction. He believes Streicher will be an NFL general manager someday.

Officially, Streicher is the New England Patriots vice president of football operations and strategy.

But he’s better known as Vrabel’s right-hand man. Or as the Herald put it: “the Patriots’ best kept secret, the man behind Mike Vrabel’s rebuild.”

Streicher and Vrabel first met during their time at Ohio State. Vrabel later brought in Streicher when he landed the head coaching job with the Tennessee Titans. The two split up again when Vrabel was fired in Tennessee.

Streicher spent a season working with McVay’s Rams in 2024. But when Vrabel was hired in New England, he quickly moved to steal Streicher away from L.A.

“(It was) very important for me. He’s meant a lot to me. He’s meant a lot to the success that we had in Tennessee,” Vrabel said back in February. “His growth, in this business of NFL football, the connections that he makes with our staff and our players, and they know that he’s an extension of me.”

Streicher’s role and perspective has been compared to that of Ernie Adams, the mysterious longtime advisor of Bill Belichick.

But unlike Adams, Streicher reportedly has ambitions of moving up the ranks and becoming a general manager someday.

How does Vrabel feel about it? The Patriots coach shut down that line of discussion right away.

“Oh, I’m not gonna get into that,” Vrabel said to the Herald.

For now, “Stretch” remains the right-hand man in New England. If the Patriots do pull off a turnaround under Vrabel, expect him to get a lot of credit behind the scenes.