Here’s what New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel had to say when he spoke to reporters on Wednesday:
On the fact it’s been about three years since this team put together back-to-back wins, and how important it is in the culture he’s trying to build to get some momentum with stringing-
“It’s always important to win as many games as you possibly can. There’s a lot of stats here, guys, that I’m not familiar with, nor am I concerned with. The focus is trying to build some consistency, which would then lead to confidence and continue to build on what we did and prove the things that we have to fix, and then continue to eliminate some of the things that we feel like could get you beat. I’m excited about doing that today through meetings and practice and getting them to get ready for a new opponent, just like we did last week. We cleared the deck and focused on the next opponent.”
On how Terrell [Williams] is feeling and what he expects from him this week in terms of his involvement:
“I’d say he’s feeling better. I think that we’ll probably be operating under the same premise. I mean, Terrell’s around. I just want to try to get some continuity. And with the situation probably being fluid, we’ll stick to the same plan that we had last week. He’ll just be more involved. I just want to make sure that we’re not in and out and in and out. That’s all.”
Any if there’s any update on Christian [Gonzalez]:
“I would expect him to do some stuff today at practice.”
On the fact that on Sunday, TreVeyon [Henderson] had three holding calls and if he plans on working with him this week a little extra for technique to try to minimize that from happening:
“Yeah, obviously. I mean, of course. We believe in TreVeyon’s ability to protect. That’s one thing that we think that he can do. I think if you asked Antonio [Gibson], Antonio would probably be as much at fault as the one on the kickoff return. I don’t think you can really bounce the ball out when we’re kicking somebody out by the sideline. So that one I’ll give him a pass on. The other ones, we just have to make sure we keep our head up, stay square, and be able to move our feet and not let them beat our feet and grab them. So two is too many, so we’ll just keep working on it.”
On if Christian is doing stuff in practice today, if that leaves Sunday as a possibility:
“Sure.”
On the fact that everybody speculates when it comes to injuries, but how hard is it for a player to have his injury not understood by the public:
“I don’t know. I guess if everybody’s looking for somebody to blame, and I’m not, I’m trying to just get them back as soon as they can get back and make sure that they’re staying engaged. Then we have to decide how long that’s going to be. Is there short term IR, all these different things that come into it. But everybody wants to blame if it’s not in some window that the doctor on Twitter suggests or recommends. Again, having had numerous injuries, they all recover differently, and had players that have recovered differently. It’s like, ‘Well, why did one injury take this long?’ And is it the player not working hard to come back? Is it the trainer’s fault? Is it this person’s fault? I’ve said this, the injury rate in professional football league is 100 %. If you play this game long enough, you are guaranteed to get injured. I don’t think you can avoid that. I think it’s just how you handle it and kind of go from there.”
On the fact it doesn’t help them to put it out on how long someone is going to be out:
“Why? Because it could be shorter or it could be longer. And then when it doesn’t meet the timeline, then somebody is going to come back and say, ‘Well, you said it was going to be two weeks.’ I don’t know. So instead of being wrong every single time, I choose to just try not to say a timeline. And if they are back in a week, then great. It takes a couple of weeks, and there we are. And that goes for everything.”
On the fact that from a player’s perspective, ‘people are starting to talk, I wish I could tell people what’s wrong with me so that they would understand:’
“I think that that’s great in this case, maybe. But then it’s going to be the next thing and the next thing. You’re going to write. You got all pads and recorders. You’re going to write whatever you want to write. They’re going to think whatever they want to think. I think, to that end, where would you stop?”
On when he went back and watched the film, what he saw on the missed tackles:
“We’ll have to tackle much better. We’ll have to tackle [Jaylen] Warren, Jonnu [Smith], [DK] Metcalf, [Calvin] Austin. So that’s the focus. That’ll be a critical part of this game plan. Those guys are great with the ball in their hand. They run very hard, they’re skilled, they’re big, and present a challenge.”
On the fact he faced Aaron Rodgers twice when he was in Tennessee, and what the challenge is of facing him:
“I think the ball can go… When you see him extend the play to the right and throw it down 60 yards or whatever that was, his operation is excellent. His ability to find relief throws and plays that he doesn’t think will be positive plays. He finds relief throws. It’ll be a great challenge to be able to find ways to affect him.”
On if what they’re doing is Arthur’s offense versus how much of this is what Aaron has brought with him from Green Bay to New York and now Pittsburgh:
“I think Arthur has done things with multiple quarterbacks. I mean, is he doing what he did with Ritter, Whether they’re running zone read, no. But there’s also other elements that he’s done a lot of. And Aaron, having played quarterback as long as he has, is going to have things that he likes. And so I’d say it’s a blend.”
On Christian [Gonzalez], some players are itching to get back maybe even too early based on the injury, and how has his mindset been-
“The locker room will be open in five minutes. You’ll be able to ask him. I’m not going to speak for his mindset. If you ask me about anybody’s mindset right now, I’d say, you just feel free to ask them. They’ll tell you exactly what their mind’s thinking.”
Mike, with Drake Maye, what has he learned about him when it comes to motivation:
“Do we really think that we can motivate, really? We’re trying to inspire him. I think they’re all motivated. They’re professional athletes. And if they’re motivated by championships, that’s really great. If they’re motivated in college because they want to date the cheerleader, even better. If they’re motivated to earn a starting job. I just think that thinking that we have to motivate them. I want to inspire them and give them confidence and trust that they can go out there and do their job. I think that’s the-”
On the player’s personality, if he has to approach each one differently:
“Well, yeah, we do that all the way. Whether we’re teaching them, whether we’re trying to inspire them, make a connection with them, I think you just have to know the audience and know who they are. Again, we’ve talked about having different personalities and trying to have one mindset and one mentality. I think he’s personally motivated, and I think he’s earning a lot of confidence. I think just the decisiveness and the ability to perform, and seeing these things translate from the first week to the second week, was really good.”
On the fact they had some more success in the ground game last week, but there were still some inconsistencies, it seemed like maybe specifically was outside zone stuff, and what he feels like they did better and what they can do to impove this week with some of those issues:
“We’ll just have to handle the front, handle movement. It’s never going to be great. Almost average five yards a carry. We’ll try to improve on that and keep the scheme multiple.”
On Andy Borgales and saying he never lost faith, and why that was so important to highlight him after the game:
“We play a lot of rookies, and that one in particular, when there’s a missed combination block other than Taylor, I don’t think anybody else is going to notice. But when you miss a kick, everybody notices. If the receiver lines up in a wrong spot, nobody notices. If an offensive lineman false starts, the entire stadium and everybody watching… So again, I just think that’s a job that I wanted to recognize him going out there, and it’s a huge kick, the difference between three and six. The situation’s changed really quick. I’m sure in his mind, he’s like, ‘Oh, we’re going for it. I’m off.’ And then all of a sudden, we’re kicking. So to me, that’s pretty cool.”
On Zak Kuhr, when he hired him in Tennessee, all of his experience was on the offensive side of the ball and why did he put him on defense, and why did he think he could handle that?
“Just because I thought we talked about some of these trends from college coming, and nobody watches more defense than offensive coordinators. But he learned. He learned what we were doing. He brought other ideas and then helped us bridge the gap with some of those trends that were coming from College and kind of what they were thinking. Again, was heavily involved and did our red zone stuff in Tennessee and really grew exponentially as a defensive football coach.”
On that when they got a lead like they did, they were able to run whatever offense they wanted but it seemed like the marriage between running and pass was really strong there, and if that was something that was best against the Dolphins defense, or if it’s something that speaks to an identity:
“It’ll have to be the same thing this week. I’m going to really struggle going forward if on Wednesdays we’re reviewing the game. We do that on Monday, and we got a tough challenge. Pittsburgh has got veterans, they got athletes, linebackers are fast. TJ Watt is going to be an issue. [Nick] Herbig, have always had a lot of respect for his game. Cam Hayward will push the pocket back in the middle, and then you never know where Jalen Ramsey is going to be a corner, he’s going to be a nickel, he’s going to be a safety. So it’ll be a huge challenge.”
(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.
So far the Pats are doing well given they have so much player change, plus all are in a new offense and defensive systems. It was never going to be all smoothed out in summer camp. Pitt. Pitts D is banged up. They will have 3-4 starters out. But I think they will rebound this week. They do have some talent on D. As well, I think the Pats D will also play a bit stiffer in terms of points given up. I say that as Pitts offense isn’t that great. The net being a low scoring game. Pats 19… Read more »