Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel shed some light on things behind the scenes on Wednesday, talking about one aspect of the team that not everyone thinks about when it comes to some of the inner workings here in New England.
During his press conference before practice on Wednesday, Vrabel discussed the process players must go through before they even take the field in camp. One thing he mentioned was that the amount of meetings they have to sit through can be a little “brutal,” especially the first one.
“Well, I think we’re grateful. I think we’re excited,” said Vrabel. “There’s an energy in the building. The players seemed excited to go. We had a long meeting. That first training camp meeting is brutal. It is long. There’s a lot of presentations that we have to get in front of them. They stayed engaged and then came in here this morning, and I’m excited to hit the field with them, and our coaches are ready to work and continue to build what we started on in the offseason.”
However, when asked to provide a little more detail, Vrabel said that they cover a variety of areas, from security to processes at the hotel, as well as how to handle themselves with the media. But one part that was interesting was how much their personal care is a big focus. That was one facet Vrabel said required a lot of time and energy on his part to sit through and get to know the people behind the scenes who will be taking care of his players this upcoming season.
Another key detail he talked about was the fact that everything they need is essentially on site at Patriot Place. That allows the players to get the majority of tests and medical care right there, which definitely makes things easier. He also said that when it comes to player care, the ratio of specialists to players is also high, with the number of people taking care of them being something that surprised him.
“There’s an extensive medical presentation, which is critical,” explained Vrabel. “The one thing that I tried to reference to our football team was, I went to attend a doctor’s dinner for every doctor and nurse and every person that would come in contact with our football team through the course of the year. We’re extremely lucky to be where we’re at to get that kind of care. We can get our MRIs, we can get a lot of our lab work right here at Patriot Place.”
“The one thing that Jim Whalen, our trainer, told me at that dinner, because I was like, ‘There’s a lot. I wasn’t expecting there to be this many people.’ He said that we have one specialist per every three players. Whether that’s an orthopedic or whether that’s a cardiologist, that is a neurologist, anybody that would have to be in contact with our players, we have a large group, and we’re thankful. They take care of us here at Patriot Place at Brigham and Women’s to be able to get in an MRI and get back and be efficient so the players get back in meetings.”
“All these different things. The concussion – making sure that that presentation is presented. So, there’s an extensive medical equipment, wearing the proper equipment, and understanding what that is about some of these young guys and their feet. We covered at a hotel, we covered security, we covered media. For you guys, there’s a media presentation that there’s a film that the league puts out. Stacey [James] and I talked to them about that. There’s a long checklist.”
Knowing they have that in the background is something that Vrabel more or less indicated puts his mind at ease. As a former player, he understands that aspect of things and it was clearly something he cared a lot about as he spoke about it this morning.
“There is a lot of comfort there,” said Vrabel. “There’s a lot of experience on Jim’s part. We’re just trying to give the players the best care that we can as quickly as we can to give each guy what they need. So, that’s been good.”
“Again, we always talk about some of these injuries are going to be unavoidable. It’s just how we work from them and how we come back from them is what’s most important.”
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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.
