When the New England Patriots face off against the Dolphins in Miami on Sunday, Zak Kuhr will take the field with a new role. The inside linebackers coach will serve as New England's fill-in defensive coordinator and call plays for the defense in place of Terrell Williams, who is away from the team because of a medical matter.

Head coach Mike Vrabel announced Kuhr's elevated role for Sunday's game during his Friday afternoon press conference at Gillette Stadium.

"Zak Kuhr will call the game defensively and I'll help him like I always do," Vrabel said. "But I'm excited for that. I think we've been prepared all week for that. 

"It was a good week of preparation," added Vrabel.

This is the second time Williams, 51, has had to leave the team due to a medical issue. He was away from the team and coached remotely from his home in Michigan during offseason workouts because of an undisclosed medical issue, but returned for training camp. Williams also had to leave a practice early during the summer because of dehydration. 

Vrabel said he would have an update on Williams next week.

This was Williams' first year as a defensive play-caller, and now those duties will fall on Kuhr Sunday in Miami. Kuhr handled much of Williams' in-house tasks during the defensive coordinator's summer absence, when Vrabel referred to him as a coaching "superstar."

"I saw a lot of maturity, a lot of growth, but also a lot of knowledge,"  Vrabel said of Kuhr's work in the summer on Friday.

Kuhr said he's ready to step up and assume more duties on Thursday, but added anyone on the staff is capable of doing so.

"Everybody comes in to work every day where, if somebody needs extra help, we're all ready to do that," said Kuhr. "Vrabes does a good job hiring good people. What I love about him as a head coach and even as a person is, really his mindset is everyday, 'How can I help? How can I make somebody better? How can I help you this situation?' It's all about working together and helping whoever needs help and reaching a common goal."

Kuhr heaped praise on Patriots team captains Robert Spillane, Marcus Jones, and Harold Landry for being great leaders on the field and helping relay any messages in the locker room.

"Everything is a collaborative operation with the players and the coaches being aligned. I don't think anything can really change that," said Kuhr.

Who is Zak Kuhr?

Kuhr joined the staff in New England shortly after Vrabel was hired, after he spent the 2024 season as a defensive assistant/analyst for the New York Giants. Before his one year in New Jersey, Kuhr spent four seasons on Vrabel's staff in Tennessee. He held a few different roles in Tennessee from 2020-23, including a stint as the team's inside linebackers assistant.

Before his NFL coaching career, Kuhr spent 11 seasons in the college ranks with stints at Texas (2019), Texas State (2017-18), Rutgers (2016), James Madison (2014-15), Old Dominion (2013), Ohio State (under Urban Meyer from 2011-12), and Edward Waters College (2009-10). Kuhr spent a lot of his time in the college game on the offensive side of the ball, including time as the offensive coordinator at Texas State. He was the assistant coach for head coach at Texas before he made his way to the NFL.

Vrabel said Kuhr's background on the offensive side of the ball in college helped him when he moved to the defensive side in the NFL.

"[I saw] him having been an offensive coach and watching him work at Ohio State, and when we were able to get him to Tennessee how quickly he turned that knowledge to the defense," Vrabel explained. "What an asset he was defensively for us, especially coming from the college game and as some of those trends made it to the NFL – the spread, the RPO, or things like that – he really became an asset for us defensively. He did our red zone stuff for us in Tennessee, and then continued to grow and continue to understand what we were doing."