TRANSCRIPT: Mike Vrabel Postgame Press Conference 1/18
Mike Vrabel Postgame: Patriots Advance to AFC Championship with Resilient Divisional Round Win
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Here’s what New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel had to say following Sunday’s Divisional Round win over the Houston Texans on Sunday.
On how it feels to be in the AFC Championship
“Well, I’m always excited for our organization. Excited for the players. I am appreciative of their work and their efforts. Everybody’s stepping up. We’re using everybody. Everybody’s making plays. Everybody’s helping us win. I’m excited for these guys, but they’re also, they’re not satisfied, and I can tell that. It wasn’t pretty. Defense kept us in there, and then when needed it, our offense was able to come through late in the game there in the second half with a touchdown, give us a two-score lead. Then I felt like that drive backed up there from the three-yard line where we ran the ball and took a lot of clock was pretty classy.”
On the fact the defense has allowed 19 points in two games, and what have they done well in his mind:
“They’re playing well together. I feel like they’re complementing each other, and our turnovers are created by more than one guy. There’s some great efforts, but it’s somebody tipping a pass, or it’s somebody that’s putting pressure that’s usually helping that dude. Me or Zak’s dialing something up that kind of changes the look. We’re taking advantage of our opportunities. That’s what it’s going to take in the playoffs, is you got to take care of the ball and turn it over.”
On how he would define the resiliency of this football team:
“I mean, I think, again, there’s times where it doesn’t look great. We know going against a great defense, which that’s what they are, it’s hard. There’s some tough sleeding, and there’s some plays that don’t look great. This is a fast, talented defense, and we talked about that coming in. But in the end, it felt like we just kind of stuck around. We always talk about, ‘It only takes one play.’ Early on, that might have been Pop [Douglas] and Marcus [Jones]. KC [K’Lavon Chaisson’] caused that touchdown that Marcus [Jones] took back, or Kayshon [Boutte] in the second half, and Drake [Maye] giving him a ball. So it just takes one play, and I think that sparks us.”
On the fact he mentioned the offense in the fourth quarter, and maybe not the best first three quarters, but talk a little bit about what [Drake Maye] was able to do and stay resilient in that fourth quarter:
“Yeah, we talk about not going in the blender, and I think it’s hard. They put pressure on us, and we know we’ve got to take care of the ball. Drake knows that. But to be able to stay the course and to trust Kayshon and give him a great ball that was him or nobody. Those guys have kind of done that all year. When we needed to play, they’ve been able to do that for us.”
On the fact the players are unsatisfied, and you can tell that, and if he can give an example of what he saw that indicates that, and also, a coach’s job is always to tune out the noise, and there’s going to be a heck of a lot of noise this week and if he’s satisfied that he’s got his players to tune out that noise, or if that’s a work in progress:
“Well, I mean, we know the stadium is going to be loud, so the louder the better. I mean, every opportunity. I think what they’ve done is we’ve asked them to embrace the preparation, embrace the strain, and also enjoy every minute of this. Enjoy walking into this stadium, coming in here. Enjoy putting your uniform on. Enjoy going out there in warmups. Enjoy seeing your family, but most especially, enjoy the execution. So we’ll keep doing that. We know we got to go on the road to a number one seed in the AFC, and it’s not going to be easy, but we’ll come out and be ready to go.”
On the fact he talked about a loud stadium potentially in store for next week, and how much does he feel that the home crowd played into the victory tonight in the last home game of the season:
“Well, they help. They helped tremendously. Again, they ratcheted up there in the fourth quarter, some of those third-down stops back by the lighthouse, I felt like it was really ratcheted up. When they chose to punt, that was huge for us. Then they got a great punt, and then we took the ball. But the harder we play and the more plays that we make, the louder they’re going to get. I’ve said this since we’ve been here. They’re knowledgeable fans. They’ve seen a lot of good football over the course of 20-some years so they know what it looks like, and they have high expectations.”
On what did he see from his defense as it concerned the takeaways tonight and how were they able to just generate so many of them:
“Again, it was a group effort. We talked about it being a group effort, and whether that’s understanding the call, understanding where each guy fits. But I felt like, especially on Marcus’s, we talked about some of these boots, and KC was able to force the quarterback into a mistake, and we tipped some passes. Again, there are some other plays that are close with the quarterback’s arm. I think we kept changing the look up on them a little bit. Give our guys credit to be able to disguise. We talked about that, and certainly affecting the quarterback is a big part of winning in this league.”
On the fact he mentioned at the outset, ‘Everybody’s stepping up, everyone’s making plays,’ and what does it mean to him as a coach to get a full three-phase effort in a playoff win here tonight:
“A lot goes into it. We always give the credit to the players, but I’m extremely lucky for the staff that we have. Their knowledge, their alignment, their loyalty, and the ability that they’ve given our players to have confidence in their job is something that I really appreciate. Again, the results will always be for the players and because of the players. But I appreciate the staff, and I can’t thank them enough. Again, I tell the players all the time, I’m proud to be their coach, but I appreciate the staff as well.”
On the fact he always does such a good job of complimenting your players. But in terms of preparation, he takes so much pride in getting them ready and if there was something specific he did in preparation for this game that he reflects on now that worked in this game:
“I thought that we’ve tried to add situations to the postseason. I think we’ve tried to, instead of doing it on Saturday, we’ve tried to maybe add those situations during practice on Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and Fridays, as opposed to doing them in the walkthrough, just because we know how critical they are. But again, we’ve tried to stay consistent and not make it… We understand how important these games are and how critical each play is. But to not just change everything we’ve do. We practice on Thursdays fast and we put pads on and they embraced that. We knew it would be a physical game. We knew it would be a tough game. Again, we just have to keep getting better.”
On the fact there was a lot of talk about the Texans defense this week and if he felt like his defense took that personally at all:
“Yeah, I’m sure they’re going to tell you that here in 30 seconds when you guys go rushing out of here. As soon as Nicole leads you guys out of here, you guys will go… Again, they’re really good for a reason. They’ve shown it each and every week. But our guys are prideful men, and they want to compete, and they want to win. Again, they deserve the recognition that they’re going to get. They’re a top five defense for a reason as well. Again, that’s how some of these things go. It comes down to turnovers, and we’ve got them and get back on track. We forced second and longs, because we stopped the run and I’m proud of each and every guy in there.”
(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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