Here’s what New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel had to say during an exclusive interview with NBC Sports Boston’s Tom Curran on Monday:
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the new head coach of the New England Patriots, Mike Vrabel. You seem incredibly comfortable today.
“Absolutely. Yeah. I mean I think having done it, but then also being here, I think that the comfort level, when you stand up there and you recognize half the media …
Can you keep the mic up, too?
“Sorry. Everybody else gave me like, it’s something I didn’t have to hold. But anyways, no, I am excited and comfortable all at the same time.”
The last two early January, this is about how many people have been in the stands for the final game of the year. You’re going to be able to correct that in January?
“Well, that’s certainly that our hope. We want to play meaningful games towards the end of the season. I think the one thing that I’ve taken from not only the teams that we had in Tennessee, but successful teams, as you look, is they’ve gotten better as the season has gone on. We saw that maybe in the Baltimore and the Pittsburgh game, that one team has continued to improve, and the other one was still kind of trying to find itself late in the season. That’s something that we believe in, that we’re going to believe strongly in, and understand that it is a long season, and how do we make sure that the players are engaged and continuing to improve as the season goes on?”
You did what I thought was a really good story with The Athletic, and you laid out three primary things that you were looking for. One of them was either a pathway to a very good quarterback or the presence of a very good quarterback. So I ask you, would you be here or have been as interested, if not for Drake Maye?
“I think it was a total package. I think that certainly it had a lot to do with it. I thought, I appreciate. I enjoyed that article. I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed seeing it. I thought Zack [Rosenblatt] did a great job. But I think it is the total package. And I can’t say that if he was or wasn’t here, he is here. And I’m excited to put a great staff around him and begin coaching him and getting to know him and seeing what he can do to help us.”
I got to circle back to the question I asked you in the big press conference, and that’s on coordinators. You have an opportunity here because of his presence to look at either established guys who’ve been coordinators in the NFL, guys who’ve been mentioned like Tommy Rees. There is kind of an open playbook. How will you vet them?
“Easy. I’d be able to interview them. I’ve got plenty of time here in the next week or so. I have a list of guys that I’m excited to reach out to and see if they’re available. The important thing is that you’re putting a lot of different styles around our players. And so that they complement me, I complement them, their personalities. You’re going to laugh. 15 Mike Vrabels walking around. Nobody can handle that, especially me. But you’re just trying to get the right fit. And again, The Xs and O’s, there’s no perfect play, but it’s what the players understand, what they can execute, what they believe in, and what allows them to play with some speed and some aggressiveness.”
The other aspect that you mentioned aside from ownership was having a shared vision with the personnel people, being able to feel like they understand what I’m looking for. I understand what they’re going to bring me. We’re all on the same page. Looking at really not just this past season with talent acquisition in the draft and free agency, but in previous years, it has not been great. They just haven’t brought in enough good players. How comfortable are you that this group is going to be headed by Eliot to identify good players?
“Yeah, very. And I think that having talked to Eliot, I think that in getting to know him through the interview process and then some over the weekend, there were some things that maybe didn’t allow him to completely invest in personnel. I’m not going to be able to watch every player. I’m not going to be able to watch as many players as they will. I’m excited about them being able to consolidate that, to get me the players, to get me in front of the players that we need to identify and evaluate and allow me to coach the football team and then come together with a shared vision about who can help us. Then part of that is also developing them. I mentioned that. I believe in that, teaching them, developing them, and then inspiring them through a connection. Whatever they’ve done, whatever they did last year, that was last year and we’re going to give them an opportunity to prove their value this year to the football team.”
Every organization, and you mentioned it in your initial remarks, every organization has a culture to it. The culture over the last few years here has been candidly a little dysfunctional. There have been some silos here. Mayo talked about knocking them down. It wasn’t really as successful as hoped. You want to galvanize this franchise.
“I have to. Yeah, I believe that.”
Is that a primary goal?
“One of the most important things that I’ll do is right now is making sure that I meet with every department and hear what they have to say, hear the things that they like, things that they don’t like. Again, I believe that the number one job that I’ll have throughout this team and this staff is about listening. Listening with the intent to understand and not listening with the intent to respond. I think when you listen with the intent to understand someone’s position, it doesn’t matter whether I agree or I disagree with you, I need to know how you feel. Then, how can I help you do your job? Or you want to enhance it? What are your areas of focus? How do we make it better?
It’s been a culture of blame laying, to be honest.
“You’re going to have to blame me. I’m ready to accept the blame, and I’m ready to of credit. That’s where I’m at in my career. I want to try to help young coaches. I want young players to win. I want young players to develop. Outside of winning, there’s no greater feeling for a coach than to have a young player go from one level to another level. And you see, when you set the hook and the light goes off, they’ll die for you. You just want to teach them one thing that can help them do their job, and you can coach them as hard as you want.
That’s basically what you talked about, too. You’ve been at every stage, every level. Last question, are you surprised that Michael Felger has risen to the king of all Boston media?
“It’s unreal. Some things never change. I just was shocked at how low his shirts are unbuttoned now, these days. It’s 15 degrees out, and his shirt’s down a couple buttons too low.”
It’s a lot of things to adjust to.
“We’ll figure that out.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The above is done with the available footage and is subject to typographical errors. If you spot an issue, please let me know in the comments.)
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
