There was an aspect of the Patriots that jumped off the film to Jim Harbaugh as the Chargers head coach prepared for Sunday’s AFC Wild Card matchup in Foxboro.

To Harbaugh, the Patriots took on the persona of first-year head coach Mike Vrabel this season.

“The thing that sticks out, his teams play like he played. Do notice that,” Harbaugh told reporters Monday at his news conference. “Tough, gritty, physical, smart, fast. They kind of like to hit like he liked to hit.”

Harbaugh is familiar with Vrabel’s style after the final four seasons of the former quarterback’s playing career in the late 1990s overlapped with the start of Vrabel’s NFL career.

But the two respected coaches have never gone head-to-head in their current roles. Their teams play similarly with hard-hitting defenses but the Patriots have a much more explosive offense (28.8 points per game) than the Chargers offense, which is middle-of-the-pack in scoring with 21.6 points per game.

Harbaugh did bring the Chargers to Gillette Stadium in a late-season matchup last year with Jerod Mayo still at the helm and they laid a 40-7 drubbing on the Patriots in which Justin Herbert threw for 281 yards and three touchdowns.

The Patriots are a vastly different team under Vrabel – the 14-3 record is obvious evidence of that – but Harbaugh wouldn’t get into specifics about what exactly has changed them into a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

“A lot of things. Probably too many to mention right now,” Harbaugh said.

The biggest difference beyond Vrabel undoubtedly is the ascension of Drake Maye into an MVP-caliber quarterback.

Maye, who completed 12-of-22 passes for 117 yards with one touchdown against the Chargers last season while also getting sacked four times, finished the regular season by completing 72% of his passes, a Patriots single-season record. The 23-year-old signal-caller, who will play in his first NFL playoff game, also threw for 4,394 yards with 31 touchdowns and eight interceptions while running for 450 yards and four more scores.

And Harbaugh is impressed with Maye’s second-year leap.

“Just really effective in every part of the quarterback play,” Harbaugh said. “Throwing with accuracy, throwing outside the numbers, deep in the middle, athleticism, poise, toughness, durability. Everything has been a great year for him by any quarterback standard.”

The Chargers haven’t had much success in the playoffs against the Patriots this century, losing all three matchups with Vrabel playing in two of those games. The last time the Patriots won a home playoff game came in the 2018 postseason at the expense of the Chargers.

These are different times, but Harbaugh still understands the tough challenge that awaits the Chargers.

“I expect a playoff-type of atmosphere,” Harbaugh said. “We’ve all seen that a lot, specifically in Foxboro. Getting ourselves prepared physically, mentally is the task at hand.”