Here’s what Mike Vrabel had to say during his press conference on Sunday morning:
On if he can give us an update on Christian Gonzalez and if we might see him in Minnesota:
“You might see him in Minnesota.”
On Ja’Lynn Polk getting hurt and if we might see him in Minnesota:
“You won’t see Ja’Lynn Polk in Minnesota.”
On Carl Davis:
“You’ll see him in Minnesota.”
“Now, before you think I’m being funny, you’ll probably see Christian in Minnesota. You won’t see him on the field, probably in a uniform. See how I did that? You’ll see him in Minnesota, but he probably won’t be practicing this week.”
Well, I appreciate that part. Thank you.
“Because if I didn’t, then it would be like, ‘Oh, he’s…’ But anyways, I wanted to clarify that.”
On the fact it’s two weeks until cut down day and if he is thinking of any players who aren’t going to be on his squad, if he would cut them early to give them the opportunity to get picked up by another team:
“I think we’re so far away from that. Me personally, I’m focused on just having another great day and continuing everything that we did on Friday. And as you could see, everybody that was healthy played in the game and gave those guys opportunities. And whether it was John Giles or Webby [Jeremiah Webb], the offensive linemen, some of those guys that we talked about that didn’t get to play or practice against Washington really did themselves well when they were given the opportunity. So, I want to continue to reward those players that treat the team well and treat them the same way they treat the team. So as long as they’re here working and getting better, we’re going to practice them or eventually get them action in the game.”
On after looking at the tape if there’s anything that stood out that he didn’t see during the game:
“I thought we played to continue to build the identity of playing with great effort and trying to take care of the guy with the ball. We have to tackle better and that happens sometimes in the first live-action. A lot of good stuff to teach off of there. Continue to talk about the ball security, whether it came out or not. The opportunities were, we feel like, the ball is in jeopardy. I thought we ran it well. I thought we played a clean game. I thought we took advantage of the field position. Won that battle and saw the kickoff returns to how explosive that play can be, and we’re going to have to cover those same kicks this year. So did a lot of those good things, and then we just have to continue to improve the things that we talked about with the missed tackles or getting into a rhythm with the passing game and kind of just continue to progress.”
On if there’s a specific focus of practice today:
“We’ll be in a red zone. We know how critical that is. We didn’t get a stop defensively in the red zone. We did a nice job offensively in the red zone, but defensively, it wasn’t very good. So again, we like coming off these days off in the red zone. Shorter space for the players, but it’s still a critical area where you need precision and speed. It’s just not maybe long speed.”
On if Morgan Moses is one of the players that he feels good about his health plan right now:
“Yeah, and I anticipate him to practice today and be in Minnesota as well.”
On TreVeyon Henderson’s kickoff return, it looked like [Elijah] Ponder’s block helped and what he’s seen from him in camp:
“Sure. Yeah, Elijah continues to improve. And I think that the ability to play on special teams as an outside linebacker, who probably in college, they don’t get a whole lot of work at, is something that you’re always trying to build and develop because it is new for some of these guys on that particular play. It’s at the point of attack, and it’s a big block. And there’s going to be a lot of these that are close. And when I say close, I mean close to a penalty and close to a touchdown. And we have to coach the heck out of it. We have to make great decisions, split-second decisions when you’re at the point of attack, because when they start to see that, we just have to stay square. The backs have to help us by setting some of these things up because the alternative is now you’re starting inside the 20-yard line and defeating the whole purpose of taking advantage of the field position. So there was a lot of good blocks there. We’ll have to see where the trends start to go on the penalties. The more kickoffs are going to be, the more penalties you would imagine and see what the league wants to do there.”
On when he watched the film back, when the quarterbacks ran in the game, if he thought they had a chance to throw and if he’d rather them take advantage of those opportunities to try some things in the game than run:
“I meant one was from the five, one was from the two. I don’t think Josh was doing anything but trying to not get hit and happened to find the end zone. Drake, I thought, made two good decisions when he went up into the B gap, got the first down. Probably could have been a little muddy, I guess, if you’re nitpicking to Mack Hollins, but I don’t think he was put in harm’s way to where he went. So I saw Mack break and again, when you have the football in your hand, we trust you to make great decisions. So I don’t know if there were any other opportunities.”
“We had a couple of move-the-pocket plays and found Jaheim [Bell] on one, which was a nice catch and run. And then I think found Chiz [Efton Chism] on the other one. I don’t know which ones you’re specifically referring to…”
The Drake Maye scramble on third down where he picked up the first down but might have had a couple shots up the left side:
“I think that the way that he went, I think it would have been hard for him to remain a passer to the left side just physically. I mean, again, once you start to scramble, and again, you’ll see some of these scramble drills, hopefully today in the red zone. But we would like him to be able to shut off half the field. You start looking back here, bad things kind of happen. So to me, I think he was going to the right. I think he saw soft coverage and trusted in his ability to be able to go and pick up the first down.”
On what he’s seen from Marcus Bryant so far in this camp, and what led to him getting the start on Friday night:
“I think he earned it. I think that when they switched over and he had some snaps on the left, a lot at the beginning of training camp, I think moving him over to the right, I thought he did well, especially in the joint practices, earned that opportunity, and continues to improve. We’ll have to play both sides for us. I think he’s just a young player that has taken the coaching and was one of the players I remember when we first put pads on, had really high pad level. We talked about it, we coached it, we showed him, and I think that has improved him, and he’s 6’6″. So first day, I guess we’ll cut him some slack and it’s improved. And that’s all we ask of the players is that each day they continue to improve and focus on improvement. So, kind of like Marcus, he’s a happy, lucky, go kid. And I think there’s a lot of good football in front of him.”
On what happened with the scrum during the joint practice last week and if he had a fun film review with the team:
“I didn’t show the team. They all looked at it, obviously, in their meeting rooms, because guys were laughing at me. But I realized that Will [Campbell] and I were thinking the same thing, just trying to get the second guy off, and TeVeyon [Henderson] and the rest of them. I just don’t want anything to happen to anybody. My job is to try to break those up, and I don’t mind doing it, and that’s how it went.”
On when he has a quarterback like Drake [Maye], who has the unique ability to extend plays and what the teaching process is there, vs that ability of wanting to play vs going down to live to fight another day:
“Yeah, we have to be able to protect ourselves as a quarterback on a football team. At the yard markers, at the sideline near the line to gain, and especially the goal line. I just think the biggest thing is just don’t assume. Try to use the rules to your advantage and being able to slide. Whether you go feet first or whether you go head first, you’re still protected. Again, we want him to be aggressive, but just not reckless and put the ball or himself in harm’s way.”
(Editor’s Note: This transcript is done via the available footage and is subject to typos. If you spot something, please take a moment to let me know in the comments below.)
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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.
