There’s been a lot of talk this week about the Houston Texans’ defense, and New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel tried to remind reporters on Wednesday that the Patriots aren’t exactly a team that can’t meet the challenge.
In fact, he feels like they’ve already proven that in the face of adversity, they can certainly rise to whatever level they’ve needed to, because they’ve done it all season.
The discussion stemmed after he was asked about Texans defensive end Will Anderson on Wednesday. The third-year player has certainly been disruptive for Houston this season, racking up 12 sacks, including 3 quarterback hits and a half sack against Aaron Rodgers during Houston’s win over the Steelers last weekend.
He finished the 2025 regular season ranked eighth in the NFL in that category, with Anderson also defending 3 passes and forcing three fumbles.
That led to the question about how New England would handle someone like Anderson and a defense that was so good at getting offenses off the field on third down.
Vrabel didn’t mince words, letting reporters know he was certainly confident in his guys to answer whatever challenges they might face this weekend.
“Well, we never want to sit there and be in third and twelve,” said Vrabel. “We were third and fifteen [it was 3rd-and-13] last week. We picked it up.”
“Chargers were ranked the same as the Texans,” he added. “We’re going to go play the game. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to play the game. We’re going to enjoy it just like we did last week. Again, you have too many of those, I think it’s probably a bad thing. But if we find ourselves in those situations, then we’ll have to get ourselves out of them.”
When it’s come to facing 3rd-and-long, New England has made plays when they’ve needed to all year. In fact, when facing 3rd-and-9 or longer during the regular season in 2025, Drake Maye was 33-of-49 (67.35%) throwing the football, with 18 first downs (54.6%). He hit the 3rd-and-13 they faced last Sunday against the Chargers (Vrabel referred to it as a 3rd-and-15, but his point is still well-made) by completing a 19-yard strike to Hunter Henry.
As a result, Maye doesn’t blink whenever they’re faced with long-yardage, and he generally steps up and gets it done.
Maye also spoke to reporters on Wednesday, and he sounded confident heading into Sunday’s showdown. He knows the Texans’ defense is a hard-hitting group that is good at causing problems, and he said the plan this weekend will be for him to just be smart with the football and simply take advantage of whatever opportunities that end up being available.
“Yeah, those guys, especially at the linebacker level, they’re going to try to take your head off, and I respect them for it,” said Maye. “They do it at a really high level. They tackle the ball carrier hard, and they’ll punish them, and they make you pay for it.”
“So, got to have a good deal about and a good feel about when to take chances and when to be smart because the linebackers are good, and they do a good job of delivering some big-time hits. That’s this league, and knowing to protect myself and try to be good.”
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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.
