Mike Vrabel is no stranger to playing in Super Bowls, and he’s trying to make sure his team doesn’t overthink things as they continue preparing for Sunday’s showdown against the Seahawks.
As we’ve seen in previous match-ups when it comes to Super Bowls, including those early 2001, 2003, 2004 teams that Vrabel was a part of, there were a lot of twists and turns throughout each contest.
All three came down to the wire, with various players needing to make plays in key moments before Adam Vinatieri finished things off and allowed them to raise the Lombardi Trophy.
Vrabel is expecting the same thing to happen this weekend. His staff has spent this week trying to get the players ready for various situations they’ll likely face, knowing that there will probably be other things that come up that they’ll also need to be ready for.
With so much at stake, and many of his players having never played a game of this magnitude, it’s easy to overthink things. That’s something Vrabel is looking to avoid this week.
During his press conference on Wednesday, Vrabel said that one key message he’s trying to get the players to understand is that “every game is different,” and that as the team continues preparing for this weekend, it’s more important to treat each scenario as one to be ready for based on how the game unfolds, without necessarily anticipating everything.
“Every game is different, and don’t anticipate how it’s going to go, whether it comes down to the end of the game situation or a kick or a two-minute drill. Try not to predict what those are going to be,” said Vrabel. “Make sure that each and every situation is covered and understand that each of them is critical, whether that’s a short yardage early in the first quarter or that’s a red zone stop late in the game to give our team a chance to win.”
“Just understand, having watched all these Super Bowls in the last few years and the ones that I’ve been a part of, is trying not to really predict how it’s going to go, and you’ll have to see how the game is unfolding. But understand each situation that we’re going to be asked to execute, we’ve been through since April.”
Vrabel explained on Wednesday that “the next 48 hours will be critical” as they try to get back into their normal routine, despite not spending this week at Gillette Stadium.
It sounds like no stone has been left unturned to this point. Despite not seeing any of their games go to overtime this year, his staff has also already discussed potential overtime scenarios, explaining that players have been thoroughly briefed on the rules, treating it “just like starting a new game.”
“We have conversations, and we’ll continue to talk about it, whatever the philosophy ends up being,” said Vrabel when asked how they might handle overtime. “The players have been explained what that is or what that will be, and how we’ll try to attack it. A lot of this depends on their kickoff return, where the ball goes on touchbacks, how good the field goal kickers are.”
“There’s just a lot that goes into it. They’ll understand the overtime rules, it’s just like starting a new game. It’s not sudden death. Both teams will get an opportunity to possess the ball. We’ll get to the end of the first quarter. If there’s 30 seconds, it’s not the end of the game. We’re just going to flip it over and go to the second quarter. So we’ve explained all that, and then we’ll just have to be ready if this game goes to overtime.”
For now, having been there all week, things are now starting to ramp up. Vrabel expressed the challenges of trying to keep guys engaged, with the focus of his staff being to make sure they avoid situations where the information starts to get repetitive, and guys lose interest.
“Well, we felt like we just needed to make sure that they were engaged and that there wasn’t stuff that was just repetitive, and they were sitting there looking at us like, ‘We already covered this. We went through this,'” explained Vrabel. “So I want to make sure that now they’re stimulated, they’re engaged, locked in, moving forward here, first, second, and third, and red zone and situations. So that’s why the next 48 hours, I think, will be really important.”
With one game left, this final week of preparation is one Vrabel wants to get right. He’s mentioned their routine and their approach multiple times, and that seems to be the theme this week. However, the one message he hopes that players take away is that something they do this week in practice might be the difference between winning and losing, and the hope is that guys are ready to answer the bell if and when it comes up Sunday.
“Trying to be intentional with the schedule, but also just trying to keep them engaged, keep them locked in, and get them to believe that something that we do at practice today is going to come up in the game, and how we handle that or how we execute that could make the difference,” said Vrabel. “That’s how we’ve tried to approach all our practices, is that something that you’re going to do today is going to help us win.”
“I don’t know which play it is. I’m not sure which correction that it will be, but there’s going to be a play today that somebody’s going to make or not make that’s going to make the difference in the game on Sunday.”
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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.
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