Vrabel Sets The Tone During Intense Opening Speech to Patriots Players
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New head coach Mike Vrabel had a meeting with the entire group of players who were on hand at Gillette Stadium this week as the team begins its offseason workouts at the facility, with a video making the rounds as Vrabel addressed them.
Respect was a word that was used several times throughout the portion of what was an almost four-minute video, with Vrabel laying the groundwork and expressing his expectations as they begin preparing for the upcoming season.
“There are some things that I have that I would ask us to try to abide by,” said Vrabel. “One is to respect the team, respect the football team and the people that are here. The second one is, I’d like you to have when we’re in a meeting, I know what the style may be, just pull your hood down in a meeting. That’s all I ask. I just ask that when we’re in a meeting, that we just pull our hood down and we go from there.”
“Be on time. We just talked about time. Be on time. If I can’t be on time, Christian (it’s not known if it was Christian Gonzalez, Barmore, or Ellis he was addressing), what’s the easiest thing to do? You would just call. That’s called communicate. All you got to do is say, ‘Hey, something came up. I’m going to be a little bit late.’ Now, after about four or five times, that starts wearing off. This is just a once in a while. All it is is a respect thing.”
“And the cell phones. We all got cell phones. Most of you have more than one, as a matter of fact. Just leave the cell phone in your bag, but just put the phone away. If it rings, don’t start start coughing. I’ve been in this league for 25 years. We all know when a cell phone goes off, we don’t need to start coughing and doing that s**t. We’ll just turn it on and put it on silent, and we’ll move on. Leave it in your bag.”
“The cell phones in the weight room. Leave it on the counter or leave it in your locker. You don’t need to do a set and then check your cell phone. Do a set and check your cell phone. Just leave the cell phones out of the locker room.”
From there one big thing that Vrabel also tried to instill was letting the players know that the goal is to build a program they could all be proud of, while also saying his goal is to have something they all want to be a part of and believe in.
“What my goal was that I told everybody in the building, and I told Mr. Kraft, I told the coaches, it was to build a program that you guys and the coaches and the staff wanted to be a part of, that they wanted to protect,” said Vrabel. “When you care about something, do you protect it?”
“Yes,” the players responded.
“And that you were proud of it. That I’m proud to be a New England Patriot. I’m proud of the way that we do things. I’m proud of the way we prepare. I’m proud of the way we practice. And I’m proud of my teammates for the effort in which they play. So that was my goal, to get started. And then that you’re going to eventually believe in that and then start to trust it.”
Vrabel then went on to say the goal was to win the AFC East, noting that it’s obviously been a while since that happened.
“The goals for our program, the overriding goals for that program that we’re going to build, is going to be one to win the division,” said Vrabel. “When was the last time the New England Patriots won the division? Does anybody know? 2019. And we have one player, Joe Cardona. That’s one person. So we’re building our own identity. We’re building our own team. We’re building our own program.”
“There’s going to be things within that that are different. There’s going to be things within that that are the same. And it’s all going to be based on, how do we make you guys as good as you possibly can be as an individual, as a player, and then as a teammate? That’s going to be our whole goal. And you have to start understanding that of why we’re doing what we’re doing.”
One other point of emphasis that was interesting was how important it also was to him that the guys also respect the staff on hand who support them each day. That was something Vrabel stressed, letting guys know that they’re there to support them, but they certainly don’t work for them.
“The training staff, the equipment staff, the kitchen staff, these people are all here to do what? What are they have you to do? To help you,” said Vrabel. “They’re here to help you do your job. They aren’t here to be your valet, to be your housekeeper, to be your maid, to be your butler. You get where I’m going? We’re going to treat those people with the utmost respect. If you’ve got a problem, you and I, you can cuss me out. I’m a big boy. I promise you we can handle it. But we’re going to treat those people with a hell of a lot of respect, just so we’re all on the same page.”
“That’s important to me. That’s important to our owner. That’s important to me. That’s important to everybody here is how you treat people in this building.”
It’s not known who shot the video, but based on the vantage point it was shot from, along with the fact it seemingly mostly vanished from social media after it appeared, it didn’t appear to be something the team provided or sanctioned.
Either way, it was a nice glimpse into Vrabel laying a foundation and certainly sets the tone for the coming 2025 campaign. Hopefully, it also translates into better results than we’ve seen the last two seasons.
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I’d wonder how different this is from being under Mayo or BB or any other team? Regardless, respecting is always a good thing.