TRANSCRIPT: Mike Vrabel With Michael Felger 3/31
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Mike Vrabel sat down with Michael Felger of 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Felger and Massarotti Monday morning, and here’s the full transcript of New England Patriots head coach’s interview.
All right. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Owners’ Meetings, Felger and Maz. We’re now joined by Patriots’ Coach Mike Vrabel. Mike, thanks for taking the time. We appreciate it.
“Absolutely. How you been?”
Good. How you been?
“I’ve been great.”
You enjoying yourself?
“Yeah. Just finding our way back to Boston and how this thing kind of came full circle. I think just some flashbacks, sometimes working through the locker room and being like, ‘Wow, I can remember being over here and [Tedy] Bruschi and all these other guys. Here’s where Willie’s [McGinest] locker was, and Don Davis was next to me. Here was [Larry] Izzo’s locker. So I think that’s just been cool at different points during the day.”
What do you like better, playing or coaching?
“Playing. So I mean, it’s just the whole-
Yeah, I get it.
“There’s a lot that goes into this. I think as a player, you don’t really realize. You leave, you head out of there at 4: 00, 4:30, 5:00, whatever. You got your days in the offseason. There’s really no offseason for us as coaches, but I do love doing this. I think somebody asked me, ‘What did you learn in your time in Cleveland?’ And I said, ‘I learned that there’s nothing else I’d rather do.'”
What takes more of your time, playing or coaching?
“Coaching.”
Is it even close?
“Nowhere close.”
Are you one of these coaches that goes crazy or not? Do you have a cot in your office?
“I have a couch.”
You sleep there?
“I have, but it’s just because I have a condo with no furniture. It’s like, we’re transitioning, I think there’ll be times where I’ll stay in there. I don’t want to, but there’s certain circumstances that you just end up staying there. We don’t want to sit there and guard our desk. We want to be very efficient, we want a rested staff, a staff that has energy that can come in there and translate that to the players. I think that’s the whole idea coming in is we just try to bring an energy to the building, get everybody going, and building a team.”
But even when you have your house and your family, there are times you will sack out in the office.
“There will be.”
Were there times when you were a player and you would see Bill [Belichick] and his staff or any coach sack out in the office and you’d say to yourself, ‘Not me.’
“Who am I to judge? I mean, who am I to judge? But that’s the life of a coach. Sometimes you obsess over some of those things. You’re like, ‘I got to keep watching. I got to keep watching film.’ I don’t know if that’s always the answer. Again, we want a very efficient staff. We want a staff that’s rested and that can come in there and be great teachers.”
Okay, Mike, you said, I’ve heard you say many times this offseason, it’s your job to protect the team. I’ve never really heard that phrase from a coach before, unless I missed it, did you pick that from somebody? Did you hear someone else say that?
“I can have some original thought. Believe it or not.”
Okay, where’d you come up with that?
“It’s just that’s what we try to… I try to say that I’m going to treat everybody in the organization the same way that they treat the team. People that care about the team, that are great teammates, that show up on time, that study, try to play hard, try to work hard, we should do everything that we possibly can for them. Some of those people that don’t do that, hopefully they’re not with us that long, but I’m certainly not going to engage in a whole lot of conversation or get their opinions on things. So overall, my job is to try to protect the team, build a team, and protect the team. And hopefully the players can do the bulk of that work. And wherethey don’t, then I can fill in and pick up where they don’t. So I would like to leave it up to the players to be able to handle a lot of those things and hold each other accountable. If they don’t, then I can gladly step in.”
What’s the best way to support a young quarterback in your mind. And these are all important, right? But pass catchers, protection, or defense and coaching, right? There’s different ways to protect a quarterback. They’re all important, but where do you start?
“I think understanding the game. I think just how you want to play the game, being able to take care of the football. I just think that there’s a lot of instances in this league where there’s bad football that gets you beat. We want to make sure that we understand how we want to play the game, how we want to take care of the football, how we want to take care of himself. There’s times where he should slide and protect himself and protect the equipment. I think it just comes from that and knowing that you don’t have to do it all on one play, that you don’t have to try to win the game on one specific play. I think it starts there. I think it just starts on his leadership so that he can get it the best from everybody and that he can command the respect of the huddle. Those are important.”
But you understand what I’m driving at. Free Agency was mostly defense. It feels like it’s been a focus on that side of the ball. You look on the offense and you say that’s-
“There’s a focus on building a team. There’s a focus on building the football team. Whether we were able to add more offensive players, I think that that’s something that we’ll continue to do. We have to do that. But the focus was building the football team and trying to get as many players in here that we felt like could help us.”
Give me a talk radio topic for one second, Mike. Will you indulge me?
“What’s that?”
Okay. We talk a lot about coaching trees and Belichick’s coaching tree, and Belichick’s coaching tree has fallen on its face. No one’s… [Eric] Mangini, [Josh] McDaniels, [Matt] Patricia, Charlie Weiss, on down the line, Joe Judge. Everyone’s failing. And then people who wanted to defend Belichick’s coaching tree would say, ‘Well, what about Vrabel?’ And I would always say, I don’t know if I put Mike Vrabel in Bill Belichick’s coaching tree.
“When you see me coach or you see me interact, do you feel like I’m from that lineage?”
No.
“Me neither.”
So you don’t consider yourself part of Belichick’s coaching tree?
“I never worked for Bill Belichick as a coach. There’s a lot of things that I learned from him as a player that I’ve used. But just like with Urban Meyer or just like with anybody else that I’ve worked for, I’ve tried to take those things, but do it in my own personality, in my own style.”
Okay, what do you take from him?
“Well, I thought the preparation, we were prepared. We were a prepared football team. We knew what the rules were, and we used them to our advantage as a player. Those are things that he could explain to me that try to help and do those things. The competitiveness in which we try to create in the roster, I felt like was something that as a player, I don’t know if I necessarily loved, but it certainly is something that I look back on and say, ‘Hey, that was best for our football team is putting good players at the position and letting them fight it out and figure it out how everybody’s going to help the football team.'”
What from his coaching do you reject now or you think wouldn’t work now?
“Well, that’s not up to me. I’ll do things how I see them. I believe strongly in making connections with players, getting to know them, getting to know their families. Unfortunately, there’s a negative side of that that you sometimes have to move on from players or have conversations about contracts, but we’re always going to do it from a position of being honest and being direct and not wasting anybody’s time.”
Do you stay in touch with Bill?
“We talk. We haven’t talked in a little bit, but I know where to find him. He knows where to find me.”
Do you think he belongs in the league?
“Well, that’s not up to me. If I owned a team, I certainly wouldn’t be coaching one.”
Would you hire him if you were owning a team?
“We’d go through the process. There’s a process of hiring. There’s a hiring process.”
Okay, how about your arc as a Patriot, Mike? I went back and I read your wonderful interview with Ron Borges in November of 2008, just before you got traded, where you were in the middle of a CBA negotiation and you talked about the owners opening up their books. ‘We asked to see their books and they won’t open them. It’s tough to form a partnership with someone who won’t show you his books.’ You say you ‘look around at what they’ve built here. They were just building them all at the time. Every bit of it is tied to the team, but none of that revenue is included. I’m curious about how that goes,’ you said. ‘How did this get built? Where did this revenue come from?’ This is good stuff, Mike. And then you got traded. Do you think that was one of the reasons?
“No.”
No?
“No. There’s a lot of different reasons. That place is beautiful, by the way.”
It is.
I basically live there between all those restaurants, the new incoming staff.”
It’s great.
“It is.”
Did you have to get past that?
“For who?”
You, the Krafts, et et cetera. When you came back, obviously, you’ve been welcome with open arms…
“We’ve had great conversations. Robert and I and Jonathan have had great conversations.”
That never came up?
“There’s a lot of things that come up. I think personal conversations. Again, we’ve talked about that, and that was a role that I played at that time. When you’re on the executive committee and you’re a football player and you’re going through… Negotiations are fun. I’m sure you have an agent, right?”
Yeah.
“Yeah, see? I’m sure he’s doing everything he can for you, and you pay him probably pretty good to represent you and do right by you. So during negotiations, I think there’s a lot of things on both sides that are said to try to help your own position.”
Okay, so you mentioned that you’re on the players committee. You were a player rep. You also used to be on the competition committee or the coaches end of it. I’ve heard you’ve been sitting on meetings now. So let’s just do some quick league stuff. Where are you on the tush-push?
“We vote Tuesday, so I haven’t decided yet. We’ll vote Tuesday”
You haven’t decided?
“No. I have until Tuesday to have a conversation. And again, those will be the team. Robert and Jonathan will ultimately have that vote. I don’t carry a vote. I just have a-
You think they’re going to vote on their own? Or aren’t they going to follow your lead?
“I think we’ll have conversations on it.”
So how come you’re not willing to talk about it beforehand? Which is obviously fine, but that’s obviously a decision.
“Because we haven’t come to a final agreement on what we’re going to do.”
I find that impossible to believe.
“Why? The meeting’s Tuesday. The vote’s Tuesday.”
Okay, you’ve had months and years to look at the thing and consider the thing.
“Months and years? I’ve been here three months.”
They’ve been running the play for two years, three years. Okay, that’s fine. You just don’t want to do it beforehand. You’re not going to go into the breakfast here now and tell everybody, right?
“Maybe I will.”
How about the 18-game schedule?
“I haven’t even heard about 18 games.”
So you don’t want to talk about any of this stuff?
“Well, there’s nothing that I’ve heard that they’ve presented as 18 games.”
If it was before you, would you be-
“I could coach as many games as you need me to coach.”
New kickoff.
“I thought it was good. The ball was in play. I think that moving it up, certainly the numbers would tell you that the injuries were down, the high speed impacts were down. So returns were up. Seven touchdown returns.”
Okay, broader thing. Now that it’s up for what bothers you about the game? What bothers you about NFL football? For example, pass interference, roughing the passer, things of this nature. Is there a set of rules or the way the game is officiated that you don’t like?
“No. People it here… The only job harder than playing professional football is officiating professional football. It’s fast. I stand behind the quarterback at practice, and it’s like, okay, was that a hold? I don’t know. It’s like a split second. Was the ball out? What’s going on? Was the DB playing the ball? Did he get there too soon? Does that rise to a level of foul? Did he tug them? Was there a restriction? It happens fast. I just think that if whatever we can do in replay assist, I think they’re going to try to do that.”
Do you like to replay assist? Do you like more replay?
“I think that to get the spots, and I think that wherever it can help us, if we can get it right, I’m all for getting it right in a quickly, timely fashion.”
It was up to you? Would they replay everything?
“No. No. That’s not the answer.”
How about state of the game? The sport, like your grandkids, Mike, when you have them, will you encourage them to play football?
“I hope so. I hope they play. I hope they play hard. I hope they’re great teammates. I hope they get out of it, what I got out of it. I absolutely hope they play football.”
Okay. What did I miss?
“Did you play?”
Yeah.
“How long?”
High school.
“You played through high school?”
Small school. Small little private high school.
“Where.”
I was a tight end. I had elite hand-eye coordination, Mike.
“Yeah. How many touchdowns?”
I was fourth in the county in receptions my senior year.
“How many touch downs?”
Three. I fumbled. Listen, okay, here’s my high school football story….
“Three? I had two in one game one time.”
Do you want it real quick? My high school football story?
“No, I don’t.”
Okay, fine. I fumbled, my last time I touched the ball, I fumbled it. We lost to our rival. That was it.
“God, do you live with that every day?”
I sucked. If I had size, speed, strength, toughness, and work ethic, I would have been something.
“God, do you have to live with that every day?”
Every day. I think about it every day.
“Did you play anything… I bet it was … you seem like a country club…”
I was hockey. I played hockey. I played hockey when I lived… How about you? Did you play anything other than football?
“I played everything. My dad was a basketball coach, so I started out playing basketball. And then track. I don’t think track really counts.”
Last question quickly, Stacey [James]. I know that this is not a gambling question. It’s a jumping off point. They came out with the Vegas over-unders. You’re over-under win total between seven and a half and eight and a half.
“Somewhere in the… Hopefully, it’s … always go for the over.”
How do you feel? How do you feel about the team?
“We’re undefeated.”
How do you think you’re going to be?
“We’re going to play our asses off. I know that.”
Mike, thanks for coming over.
“Appreciate it.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This transcript was done based on the available footage and is subject to typographical errors. If you spot anything, please let me know in the comments below.)
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