TRANSCRIPT: Mike Vrabel’s Weekly Interview on WEEI 9/29
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Here’s what Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel had to say during his weekly interview on WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show on Monday.
As you were walking in, we were talking about all facets of the game, everything looking good and much better result than the week before.
“If you take care of the ball, get some explosives in the return game, and get some stops offensively. I think that’s what we’re capable of doing.”
Mike, you brought up getting some stops and explosive in the return game. Other than that one series where Carolina had their opening, that punt return, was that something that sparked the team, or was it just-
“Well, I think that’s what we’ve talked about. It just takes one play. I think that that’s continued to be the message, whether it’s in Miami, and we hit one down the sidelines and gets us going with a big play or on put return or maybe defense, there’s an interception, but it just takes one play to get this thing back going. That’s what we have to look forward to in the games when it’s not going great or it’s a close game, what have you, that you just keep plugging away, and then it just takes one play for this thing to break open.
I don’t think I saw you running up the sideline on either one of them yesterday. You got away from that?
“Well, that’s not good for the Achilles.”
Yeah, be careful.
When it comes to lack of turnovers, that’s something that’s plagued you guys for the start of the season. None yesterday. What changed in practice, if anything? What do you guys focus on in practice, if anything, to ensure that would happen?
“We focus on it all the time. I think it’s just taking care of the football, using great technique, and understanding that everybody else has a role to play as well. They have to protect the guy with the ball. So quarterback’s got to make good decisions. And everybody that’s not theirs, they’re only protected it for the play. And then it goes to somebody else. So we have to continue to do that. That has to be a focal point. It’s just critical in this league.”
So you didn’t have Ramondre walk around with a football. Ty Law said that that’s what he used to have to do.
“Ty Law was a DB.”
No, but he used to say that that’s what all the guys used to do.
“Yeah, they don’t get hit. Again, I’ve heard that, but they’re not getting hit. There aren’t people coming in and hitting them. So we just want to try to practice it and make sure that it’s done with good ball security, that we have two in traffic, and that everybody else is doing their job. There’s a lot of ways to do it.”
Mike, you talk about ball security, and it is interesting because when you get into that mode of maybe you fumble a couple of times, sometimes you’ll put two hands on and you’ll over-secure it, which takes away from maybe your ability to run after catch or hit holes. How do you make sure that you balance the ball security but still being an aggressive runner?
“I think that that’s obviously what the balance is. We needed to put the fire out this week, so we were able to create some explosives. But you’re right, you can’t just sit there and run through with two hands on the football and crouched over on it and gain three yards. But you also have to take care of it. I think it was important for us to put the fire out, and like you said, continue to still be aggressive with the football in our hands and be able to make yards after the catch or the run.”
Do you think Drake Mays is ahead of schedule about where you thought he’d be through four weeks?
“I really didn’t have a timetable. I’m not really sure. We’re just trying to throw the guy that’s open as soon as he is in the progression and take care of the football. When he’s not there, use his legs. I think he’s done that at times, and we’ll continue to work on it.”
Do you see a comp between him and Josh Allen? That was the big-
“Not big into comparisons. I think you guys know that by now. But if not, we’ll keep reminding you. Not big into comparisons.”
Stef Diggs said that his comfortability within the offense is a 5 out of 10 right now. Is that just how he feels?
“Then he should study more.”
I love this, you, by the way. This is like, let’s go get ’em.
“Five out of 10. We need to get going. I’ll have to talk to Stef today.”
You got to know the playbook inside and out.
“I mean, five out of 10. I went to Ohio State. That’s failing.”
Yeah, that’s not good.
“Sorry, Courtney.”
No, I just didn’t know if it was him feeling comfortable coming back from injury or if it was how he felt with Drake or within the offense. I didn’t know…
“Well, again, we’ll have to clarify what part of it is 50%. We’ll have to have a winning effort physically, mentally, and whatever the third one was. We’ll have to bump it up a little bit here to see what’s going on.”
I think the third one is emotionally.
“Emotionally. We need to be better in all three phases then because that’s not good enough.”
Mike, what was the difference after the first series defensively, adjustment-wise that you made against-
“You know what I mean … Trying to disguise a little bit and just get our eyes in the right place. They’re moving guys and motioning and flashing them after the snap. Then we pick each other. We got that weak side bunch formation that we’ve seen for pretty much since we started practicing football, and we run into each other.”
“So I thought when we settled down, I thought just being able to hold the disguise, they were trying to motion and shift and do different things. And we just needed to settle down and relax and play football and fit where we were supposed to fit, push the pocket, not let the quarterback scramble, extend plays, which I thought, that was good. He had a lot of just third down conversion just by scrambling. That can be deflating. That’ll be huge this week, obviously, coming up. So did a lot of those things well.”
You said you spent a couple of hours watching film this week on the Carolina kick-offs. You like, when it comes to the rule change, the offense, the way that’s creating offense opportunities?
“Yeah, it does. It’s created a play. It’s also, you see some of these kickers in the different style of kick that they may want to hit. It knuckles and lands and skips. And again-”
The dirty kick, as you called it?
“Yeah. We fielded that one well. We got it to the 40. They called Dell [Pettus] 40 yards from the ball. He kind of got run over. And in that instance, sometimes they call that holding. But again, it’s 40 yards from where the football was, so it’s disappointing. But I’m trying to take and say, ‘Hey, we fielded it well. Everything we practiced, and we didn’t look ridiculous with the ball skipping and bouncing all over the place and being inside the 10-yard line.’ Got it out to the 40, but then obviously, the penalty on all those returns really just killed those yardage.”
What makes Josh Allen such a tough guy to defend?
“He’s big, he’s athletic, he’s strong, he’s stiff arms. He’s good. Obviously, he can play quarterback, but then he plays running back. Just a great athlete, great competitor, great play strength. It’ll be a huge challenge just to defend him and make sure that one, we are aggressive when we pass rush, and when we do, that we’re not loose in those scramble plays out to the right, and be ready to defend the stiff arm.”
It’s interesting that you bring up the pass rush. When you’re going against a guy like that, how much is really being gap, discipline versus trying to go get him because he can make so many plays and almost keep him in the pocket.
“There’s a balance. There’s a balance there to some of these athletes. You have to be able to go rush and try to affect them, and then also maybe build in. And then again, we wanted to be relentless and coordinated. I think that that’s something that we talk about, is you have to be coordinated, but also relentless in the pass rush and not really just stand there. That’s not going to do anything either.”
Hunter Henry had a great game yesterday. Has he become the leader in this locker room?
“I don’t think he’s the only leader. I think he’s certainly a leader. He’s a veteran player who’s had success that’s very consistent. I think that would help him to be a leader. I think he’s one of them and has gotten off to a good start.”
One of the areas that I think we all had concerned coming into the season this year was the offensive line. And it looks like they’re doing a tremendous job. I thought I saw [Jared] Wilson wasn’t in at left guard. I don’t know if there’s an injury thing, but talk about the offensive line and what they’ve been able to do when it comes not only protecting Drake Maye, but obviously what they do in the run game, what they’ve been able to do through the first four games.
“Ben [Brown] stepped in for Jared, and Ben’s been working extremely hard. He’s worked at center and guard throughout camp and played a little bit last year for the Patriots. He stepped right in. I thought he played well. I thought he had a great play demeanor, great push. The ability to protect in some of these sacks are a little misleading. It just goes in as a sack. Then you go back and watch them, you’re like, ‘Oh, Drake scrambled and ran out of bounds for no gain.’ That’s a sack. But there’s other ones, and so I don’t get too caught up in that.”
“But as long as we’re trying to create a good pocket when we are behind, when we’re not moving the launch point, that it’s firm in the middle and that we’re able to run the edge guys by and that we’re not getting beat inside or we’re not loose inside because then the quarterback and the timing gets broken down and they have to step and avoid. Now their eyes sometimes go down, doesn’t stay on the receiver or the routes. When we can do that, which they have, and again, they’re working extremely hard on third down, there’s games every week, there’s loaded fronts, there’s mug fronts, and guys are twisted, and you have to work with the guy next to you to protect them because these guys are trying to come and pick, and you have to flatten out the penetrator. Those are things that they’re working extremely hard on, and it’s good to see some of that translate.”
I used to be firm in the middle.
“How long we known this guy? Never been firm in the middle.”
He has a mug shot that does not look very firm in the middle.
You teased the big parity question.
Oh, yeah. I was going to ask you about that. Because as fans, I look at it and go, ‘There’s a lot of parity in the NFL.’ I wonder, as a coach, do you utilize that and saying, ‘Hey, listen, it’s wide open. If we play the way we’re supposed to play, we can play with anybody.’ I feel like it was a little different when New England was successful back in the days. It was very difficult to beat them. They seemed like they were ahead of everybody else. But I don’t see a team like that in the NFL. I wonder if that’s a message that you give to the players at times.
“Well, the message is that you have to play good to give yourself a chance to win. If you play bad, you’re guaranteed to lose. That’s the message. We believe that we can play with anybody when we do the things the right way and play to our identity and play complementary and all those things.”
“That’s the National Football League. I don’t think that that’s any surprise on how you to try to win. Going on the road is going to be even more difficult to handle in that environment, and being able to operate offensively in that environment.
All right, Coach. Get to talk to Mark Wallberg at all yesterday?
“No.”
No?
“I did not see that. No, we didn’t cross paths.”
Top three favorite Wallberg films before you go?
“Does [The] Departed Count? There you go.”
Do you prefer The Departed over The Town? Or do you think the Town is a…
“Coin Flip”
All right. That’s Mike Vrabel, head coach of the New England Patriots. On with us every single Monday.
(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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