Here’s what New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel had to say following the Patriots’ 24-23 victory over the Falcons on Sunday:
On the fact it’s six straight, but there are probably some things he’d like to clean up:
“Sure. But it’s a funny league. We’re going to learn from winning so that we don’t have to learn from losing about taking care of the ball, and complementary football, and how quickly things can change. End of the half, we take a nap like we talked about the other day. We took a little nap, and they scored and made it a one-possession game. Give them a lot of credit, but give our guys credit there for finishing and coming up big when we had to in the fourth quarter with the pressure, the intentional grounding forced them to punt, and then offensively being able to finish with the football was huge. Great timing by Drake, great catch by Hunter, getting a couple of extra yards, and staying in bounds. All the stuff that we practice in five minute, and they’re believing in it, and they’re buying into it because they see that that’s what good teams do to end the game.”
On with all that happened in the game for his team with some adversity, How good is that for them to see that, go out and execute and then say, ‘Hey, we do all this, but we do this when we needed to. Made the stops, made the plays, and we get out of here with the win.’
“They’re talented. They’re a good team. And that’s what happens when you do and you keep teams around, when you keep them in the game. Give them credit, but also give our guys credit for battling back when we had to. It wasn’t great there. We had our spurts, we had our moments, but we got to clean up, take care of football, and be better defensively in the red zone. That’s been our issue, and they made some good plays down there, but we got to be better in the red zone.”
On the fact he’s talked a lot about the unselfish nature of his receiver group, and what can he say about Pop Douglas, who made the most of his opportunities today:
“Yeah, and we got to keep finding Pop. But you always look, and when Pop doesn’t have the ball and somebody else does, he’s turning to block and doing all the things that we ask him to do to protect our identity. We have to continue to find him on some of these run aways or some of these slot plays that are really good for him. I love having him on the team. He’s fun to coach, and he sits right up front. He’s always into it. Great teammate, so always happy for his success.”
On the fact in New Orleans, his message to the team was, ‘Hey, you got to enjoy winning.’ and what was the message now knowing his team won despite not playing its best:
“Just get ready to go on the road. Understand that that’s how it goes in this league sometimes. It’s tough, but embrace ‘Don’t let anybody take the joy of what we do.’ Joy is authentic. Joy comes from these guys caring about each other, being happy for the guy next to them that made a play. Joy is about what we do in here, and I think that they need to embrace that and be thankful for what they get to do and what I get to do. We talked about when you get… Sometimes you get this taken away from you, whether you’re a player and you get cut, or you’re a coach and you get fired, and you get another opportunity. You want to try to make the most of it and enjoy it.”
On the fact we saw him talking to Drake on the sideline after the interception and it looked I’d like some encouraging words, and how important is it for him to pick him up in that spot:
“I have to play a lot of different personalities and try to figure out what’s best for our football team. And told our offense that we were going to need one drive to win the football game. At some point in time, I think there were seven minutes left. I said, ‘I don’t know if it’s going to be a two-minute drive or it’s going to be a five-minute drive, but we’re going to need one more drive from you. And that’s all that’s going to matter. And as soon as the defense goes out I’ll let you know if it’s going to be a two-minute or five minute.’ It ended up being a five minute. So they executed.”
On the fact when you blow somebody out, everybody can see that big win. Everybody’s excited about it. But when you win a game like this, how big of a win is it for this group moving forward to win a close game like this?
“Well, we’ve won some close games, and I think that we did kind of learn a little bit about ourselves, that you can make mistakes, and you have to be able to come back and finish the game. There’s a lot of snaps still left and understand what is needed from us. It’s a fun group to coach because I think that they’re going to always want more. They are receptive to the coaching. They give us everything they got. We’re nine games in, we practice hard, we play, beat up, we’re going on the road. I’m glad and appreciative of everything that they’ve given us this far halfway through the season.”
On the cornerback room and how they did today, Marcus [Jones], Carlton [Davis], and Christian [Gonzalez] coming out and Charles [Woods] coming in.
“Yeah, everybody’s got to be ready to go. Sometimes we challenged, and they made a play. I mean, Drake London is a good player. I’ll be able to evaluate the performance more tomorrow when I talk to you. But Charles Woods is ready to go in there and play and be ready for his opportunity. It’s kind of what you have to do. You have to be ready to go and step up. So we made some plays, and they made a few, but ultimately, we made more than they did.”
On the last drive, when they were third and a few yards to go, and the clock was stopped, had the last time out, how much conversation was there between him and Josh in terms of running the ball, let the clock go, or put it in Drake’s hands and let him make a play?
“It was pretty quick. Just go win the game. You know what I mean? Go get the first and win it. So that was a quick conversation.”
On Drake’s strip sack, there was Will Campbell running all the way to make the tackle at the end, and what did it say about him as a player and the offense as a unit:
“Well, I think that those plays, if you do those enough, you’re going to save points. There’s going to be another time in the season where somebody is going to have to do that, and the defense is going to get a stop. We weren’t able to get a stop on that particular effort, but that won’t go unnoticed. I appreciate your perspective and your willingness to point that out because the play is never over. Maybe the next time that ball gets knocked out, Will knocks that ball out, or Diggs is chasing the receiver one time and knocks the ball out, or chasing the linebacker down in Cleveland. So we don’t want to turn the football over, but when we do, we expect the effort, and that’s certainly the… Will was doing that, and that’s going to save points the next time.”
On the fact it seems like his team had a lot of success running inside today, and what did he see from TreVeyon Henderson, and Terrell Jennings having to step up, with Rhamondre [Stevenson] out:
“Yeah, they ran hard. I mean, we had some openings. I wish we would have been able to pop a few more, but we moved them, and we got on the second level and felt like it was okay. It could have been better. We got disjointed a few times. Too many second and longs. Too many times they put ourselves in long yardage, but we converted. We were good on third down, even with that. So again, the run game, and those guys will complement each other. Backs ran hard and took care of the ball, and then we had a few perimeter plays. So we just try to figure out what gives us the best chance each and every week to win the game.”
On the fact he had Terrell Jennings with the ball in his hands on that last drive, he had a touchdown earlier, and what has he done to earn the trust that he’s given him in those big spots?
“I mean, he’s run hard. He’s run hard in five minute. He’s a physical back. I mean, those guys rotated most of the game, and TreVeyon helped us win, and so did Terrell. Just trying to get the ball to everybody and the rotation. Just in that situation, I think where Josh was going to go with some inside runs there at the end, just get a little bigger back in there. Excited to keep moving forward with these guys and get Rhamondre back as soon as he can get back.”
(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.
