Here’s what Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel had to say after the Patriots win over the Dolphins on Sunday.
On the fact it looked like he was trying to keep up with Antonio [Gibson] on the sideline:
“Yeah, the official… I mean, again, I told you we had to have those guys be a weapon for us. We’ve, too many times, had penalties, and we didn’t. Rhamondre answered, and then Gibby answered. Again, we had a similar situation in practice where we had a couple of bad plays, and I’m like, ‘We got to just keep going on. We got to snap the next play.’ But then somebody hit a play, a back hit a play. And I’m like, ‘You see, it just takes one play,’ and that’s exactly what Ramondre did to get us out of that lull. We, unfortunately, just gave up the punt return, but then answered, and Gibby answered, and that unit answered. So again, I felt like we were willing to get into a street fight. We had a little lull, and we didn’t pack it up and quit.”
On if that was involuntary by him, running like that …
“I just was watching at about the 50, and I’m just excited for these guys. I’m really excited that they could fight and compete, come on the road, be in a game, get off to a good start, not be front-runners, everything that we talked about. We tried to get the drive stopped sometimes. We ended this drive with scores, with touchdowns. We were much better in the red zone. Offensively, the only thing that stopped us today was us. So there was a lot of really good keys there. Again, the penalties on special teams, there’s a lot to coach from, but it’s going to be easier to coach from a win. We’ll be able to coach them hard and make sure that we’re trying to fix the things that hurt us. But we got off to a good start. And again, we knew that a lot of that was just to make sure that we made them earn it, and we didn’t get the drive stopped on a couple of those X plays. They scored touchdowns.”
On the two missed extra points by [Andres] Borregales but he brought him in for the 53-yarder and he nailed it:
“Yeah, got to have a lot of confidence in him, and I do have a lot of confidence. I didn’t waver. Was going to go for the fourth and five to try to get it there. Then when we got backed up, I immediately just kicked the field goal.”
“I’m happy for Andy. That’s why he’s here. Thought after the first two, [he] really settled down. That’s what we’ll have to have.”
On the thoughts on the performance of his quarterback this afternoon:
“I think there’s a lot of good things and a lot of things that we’ll have to fix. The command, the operation, and when he feels that lull, that’s when we got to tighten the screws on these guys and get him set faster, get him out of the huddle faster, and really push him, you know what I mean? He’s a jockey, and he’s got to know what the flow of the team looks like offensively. We had a couple of penalties, and there’s these false starts, and again, things that we really aren’t going to be able to overcome eventually.”
On him talking about precise over perfect and kind of pushing when bad plays happen, and if he feels that this win revealed more about the character of his team, or built it?
“Well, again, I appreciate the character. Certainly don’t have to put it to the test all the time with mistakes and silly penalties or being offsides and having an interception. I mean, there’s a lot of things out there that we have to do better. But we didn’t pout, we didn’t drop our head. We went on to the next play, and we kept competing, and I appreciate that.”
“We have learned how to compete and believe that we can come down here and win football games, and I think they did.”
On as he tries to put his fingerprints on this program, game two, and what does a game like this represent to his group – five lead changes back and forth on the road:
“Again, that we’re not front runners, and that’s a big thing in this league because when you play in the National Football League, you have to be willing to take some punches, and that’s okay. But you got to give more than you take because that’s the nature of this business having been in it a long time. There’s pros on the other side, there’s good players on the other side, there’s good coaches. So just, again, proud of our team. It would always be about the players now and forever.”
On it not being a perfect defensive performance, but big plays from Milton Williams, Marte Mapu, and Harold Landry at the end and what that says about the team in general:
“Yeah. I mean, those players, we need them to play good for us to win. I’ve said that for as long as I can remember. Your best players, have to play good if you want to win in this league. Again, talking about Tay [Marte Mapu], our punt team has improved, and he’s our PP [punt protector], and he takes a lot of pride in that. He stays into every meeting. He’s into it. He plays the show team, and he’s ready for his opportunity. He went in there, made a play, made a huge play, and so I was proud of him.”
On how things went with Zak Kuhr calling the defensive plays today:
“Good. We had some good plays. We had some plays we would like to have back. Again, a lot of it, as long as the operation is good, there’s no perfect play. There’s good calls, there’s no perfect call. It’s about getting it in there. The players understand it, and we’ve made adjustments to the things that they’re doing, and that it gives them a chance to succeed.”
“So we weren’t scrambling. I didn’t feel at any point in time. You could look at the other side, and they had the delays late in the game. They had different things that backed them up that really helped us. And so our ability to get a call in and keep our composure and be ready to go. Again, just keep making them earn it and get the drive stopped. And eventually, that was our number big key for us defensively. And we got the drive stopped. We got the one stop that we needed to get stopped.”
On the defense, while they made plays at the end, how concerned he is, explosive plays were again an issue and what he saw from his defense:
“We’ll have to do better, and we won’t be the only team that they get explosive plays against, and we’ll just have to continue to be better. I know that. I understand that. But there were times where we did, where we took away those throwing lanes, and there were times that we certainly didn’t. I told you that we had to be willing to give up some of those plays outside the numbers. They hit a couple off us. They hit a couple of those sevens and those corners. I told the team that that was what going in, we were going to make them hit him, and they probably hit too many, but again, we’ll be okay.”
On the fact he knew Rhamondre [Stevenson] could ‘ground and pound’ but his thoughts on his receptions:
“I think he’s always been… I mean, he’s had good hands. I thought he was athletic with the ball in his hand. He makes good catches. He drops steps and goes. He turned 2nd-and-15 into 3rd-and-3. Those are critical when you can do that and not end up in 3rd-and-8.”
“Excited for him. Just really excited that he could have a real impact on this football game for us throughout the entire day.”
(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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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.
