Mike Vrabel recalls trolling Bill Belichick by wearing a Giants helmet to practice

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Bill Belichick has enjoyed tremendous success over his last 20 years as head coach of the New England Patriots, but he still likes to reflect on his days as linebackers coach and defensive coordinator of the New York Giants.

Belichick spent 1979-90 with the Giants and helped them to two Super Bowl titles (XXI and XXV) in that span. Those glory days have stuck with Belichick to this day, to the point where he often brings them up during Patriots practices.

Back in 2007, then-Patriots linebacker Mike Vrabel showed up to practice wearing a Giants helmet to troll his head coach — and the Tennessee Titans head coach looked back on that hilarious moment in a conversation with NBC Sports Boston's "Camera Guys."

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"Every other day, it's not an exaggeration that [Belichick] would reference the New York Giants. And he'd be like, '[Carl] Banks used to do this, Pepper [Johnson] used to do this, and [Lawrence Taylor].' Like, 'You guys stink. These guys were 3-4 linebackers.' And he would show us film.

"So finally I was like, 'OK, we've got to do something.' And I found this old helmet in the equipment room, and I was like, 'You know what? I think now's the time to roll with it, come out there and be like, 'Here we go, Bill. We've got the Giants linebackers going."

Even Belichick had to crack a smile at that one.

It turns out Vrabel wasn't the only jokester on those Patriots teams, either. His fellow linebackers provided plenty of humor at practices.

"We didn't stretch," Vrabel said. "It was like me, Tedy [Bruschi], Larry [Izzo]. It was like the old guys from The Muppets. We didn't stretch, we just sat around in a circle and sat there and just told jokes for 12 minutes."

Vrabel also talked with The Camera Guys about the real reason he FaceTimed Tom Brady and Julian Edelman during the Syracuse-UNC game, his thoughts on Brady's "The Match" performance, and much more.

Check out the full interview from NBC Sports Boston's YouTube channel

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