TRANSCRIPT: Mike Vrabel on WEEI's The Greg Hill Show 8/24

Here’s what New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel had to say during his Monday appearance on WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show on August 24, 2026.

Greg Hill: Morning, Mike Vrabel

“Good morning.”

GH: How are you?

“Fantastic. How are you guys?”

GH: Can I interest you in a blueberry?

“Handpicked from Maine.”

GH: Yeah, handpicked from Maine. Please, help yourself. I would ask, when you were establishing the identity for this football team and you chose the orange, did you ever consider the blueberry as one of the options?

“You could insert anything.”

GH: Okay.

“It’s just a figure. It could have been a pineapple. It could have been a pomegranate. So it was just that that’s what you’re going to be when there’s pressure and when things get tough, and there’s adversity, which there always is, that was just a reference. Apparently that made the cutting room floor. I didn’t see it.”

GH: Yeah, I think it’s a part of the show. I mean, I think that there are— and it seems like guys are referencing it and talking about how the identity of this team is the orange. So you cut—

“It’s not necessarily the orange. The orange, again, is just a reference of— that’s what it is. You can’t really change it once it’s—”

GH: Well, I’m just here to speak on behalf of other fruits who are upset that they weren’t chosen.

“Speak for yourself. That’s always the best way.”

GH: Thoughts on preseason game number 2? I know you were not that happy with the defense first half.

“I thought we had a very spirited effort in the second half. I felt like that the guys were competing. I felt like they, operationally and just defensively, we got some stops on fourth down. We gave up a play, but then the offense came back, and I thought there was a lot of really good things and a lot of really good efforts in the second half.”

GH: Found yourself an emergency punter.

“Sure.”

GH: Yeah. How did that come about?

“We needed a punter, and that was the first option I went to.”

GH: He had been advocating for it?

“No, no. This was, this was just being able to figure out what we need. We have got to have emergency snapper, emergency punter, different things like that throughout the season. And, felt like that was necessary at the time.”

“Plus, it opens up so many fake possibilities. We could drop back and throw it from 15 yards when he’s back there.”

GH: Okay, you want [Chris] Scheim to design a play for you? Scheim designed a play for Bill O’Brien. Didn’t quite work out that way. But Shime, would you be interested in designing a play for Coach?

Chris Scheim: I’d be happy to give it my best shot.

“Okay. What was the play that he tried to give Billy O?”

GH: Scheim?

CS: It was a really complicated play out of trips, 13 personnel. It was a whole thing.

Courtney Cox Dettore: Football guy.

“Guru.”

CS: Yeah. He did compare me to Ernie Adams. Is that a compliment?

CCD: Kid knows ball.

GH: Is that a compliment?

“It only works if it gains yards.”

“What, what caught a lot of people’s attention was you postgame talking about the lack of depth on this team. And I know you did it in regard to your thoughts about the starters not playing. But was is that kind of a not-so-subtle message to the front office about, ‘Hey, we need some, we need some more guys?'”

“I mean, we are the front [office], you know what I mean? Like, we’re all making [decisions].”

GH: You are the front office.

“Yeah, I’m just saying it’s— we’re all included in this. No, it was about the young guys that we have to develop, and you could see that the players that we kept out of the game, that those are the guys, and then we have to be able to find some guys behind them to be backups. Be first guy in and be the, third outside linebacker, be the third inside linebacker, be the sixth offensive lineman. You know what I mean? These things that are so critical – be the third safety. And so those are the things that we’re trying to develop. And I guess that’s what I was referencing. If I can walk back and I’ve already talked to Eliot [Wolf] this morning. I mean, these aren’t issues that … I’m not into subtle comments. You know what I mean? That wasn’t that. It was just they asked why we didn’t play the guys and we got to have everybody that we have available and then continue to develop and see some guys that went out and played like they did on Saturday night to continue to build that depth.”

CCD: When you compare it to last preseason and Drake [Maye] did play in that second preseason game, was that because you needed to see because he was a young guy and he didn’t have a full season of starting under his belt?

“I couldn’t even tell you. I couldn’t even remember what happened Saturday before the game, let alone what happened last preseason. I figured that this is what we needed this year. And, up to that point, we just played upwards of probably, I don’t know, 40 snaps each day. Maybe they got 30 the second day against Philly, but I felt like that was good work. And I don’t think that that’s would’ve been smart either. We weren’t going to practice them against Philly on Thursday, or we were going to practice and then not play the game.”

Chris Curtis: Why don’t you have good depth?

“Well, I mean, I think that when you look at how you want to be constructed, we have to continue to draft very well. We have to continue to develop those late-round picks, the guys that we can find that can be interior offensive linemen, that can be special teams linebackers, which is what we’re hoping when you look at, Nam [Namdi Obiazor] and Khalil [Jacobs], drafting some edge guys that you can develop and that maybe haven’t played necessarily this 3-4 defense in the past, but that you’re developing. And that’s just kind of where we were constructed. And it’s, I think we can always work to improve that. You just know that through the course of the season you’re going to need so many of those guys just because things are going to happen, and we have to be ready to play games without those frontline guys. And that’s on us to be able to get these guys ready to go.”

CCD: It’s a long season, and then if you take into consideration a postseason, which we all hope to see you guys in again, does that worry you that the depth isn’t there?

“No, Listen, you guys, I don’t want to waste your guys’s time on this. This is – it’s not very much different. I just, when I look, and I see why guys played or didn’t play, it’s because we need to feel good about these guys, and we have to develop these other guys.”

GH: Plenty of depth at wide receiver. Where are you this morning on keeping 7 guys in that wide receiver [room]?

“I don’t know that we’ve made a decision on how many guys we’re going to keep. What you have to do is you have to figure out who’s worthy of being on the 53-man roster, who’s earned it, and not just say, ‘Hey, we’re keeping X amount of this position,’ just because you have to. I mean, you have to look at the players on your roster and say, ‘Who earned the right to be on the roster and who earned a roster spot?’ Not ‘Who’s the 6th receiver?’, ‘Who’s the, just random numbers that everybody has to keep.’ You just have to decide who’s earned the right, and then you make it work wherever you can.”

GH: Speaking of 53-man rosters, cutdowns— you played in college, played in the NFL, coached in college, coached in the NFL. There are guys this go-round who are going to theoretically not make the NFL team and then go back to college again. How do you feel about that? Is that good for the game or bad for the game?

“I mean, I’ve said this, just because you pay him in college doesn’t mean there’s any more jobs in the NFL. So just because a guy makes $500,000 in college doesn’t mean that he’s going to get a job in the NFL. There’s still the same number of teams with the same number of roster spots. So I would imagine that they should get as much money as they possibly can, where they can get it to help provide for their family and whatever they want to do. But just because you pay a guy $750,000 in college, doesn’t mean he’s going to get drafted or doesn’t mean he’s going to make an NFL roster. It just means you got a lot of money to spend.”

CC: Greg does. Speaking of doing the best you can for your family, earning the most you can, Christian Gonzalez remains the biggest story. And do you think he’s being realistic? I mean, Devon Witherspoon’s contract is signed, and I myself, most of us said, ‘Okay, now there’s the market, this should get done relatively quickly.’ Why hasn’t it gotten done yet?

“I don’t have anything to add on Christian. I don’t really. I think that we’re working hard to try to get him, and we want him a part of our team for as long as— Hell, certainly I’m here— as long as he can possibly be here. That’s what we want to do.”

CCD: When it comes to Drake, you brought him up in joint practices. He looked great, impressing a lot of people. What’s been the biggest impression?

“What looked great about him, Courtney?”

CCD: Well, I thought that his completion percentage was pretty high. I thought his ability to work with AJ Brown over at—

“I think some of those are sacks, and everybody gets this thing overblown. I hope we don’t read everything that’s out there on the internet and the social media like … We didn’t do anything the second day offensively, and everybody says we did. I said, ‘You guys should stand where I’m standing.’ So I appreciate the optimism, but we got a lot of work to do.”

GH: You’re never satisfied.

“Low T.”

GH: Oh yeah. Are you dealing with low T?

“No, I’m joking. It’s just everybody has a different spin on it. And I’m like, Drake’s been fantastic. And I was just doing that in jest, but it wasn’t— we didn’t respond. Like, we responded defensively the other day, which was good to see. Offensively, you just have to realize, because in the red zone, how critical every alignment, every yard, every block is, because the yard matters. I mean, on the 8-yard line, a yard matters. And protection matters to be able to get the ball off. And yeah, Romeo [Doubs] made a great play, but we may not have gotten it off, or the timing and the precision. It just wasn’t our best day in the red zone, and that’s unfortunate because there was this significant amount of practice was in the red zone. But we got things corrected, and hopefully that shows up here today when we practice the same setting today against each other.”

GH: From your perspective, how is Romeo coming along?

“I feel like he’s— him and I, we got to figure out a celebration, you know what I mean? Rome just scores and chucks the ball. He’s back in the huddle before it lands. I really enjoy watching him, his confidence grow. He’s playing big and fast. And I think he’s starting to really be comfortable. And it just looks like the more comfortable he gets, the faster he’s been practicing.”

CCD: You feel like Andy [Borregales] got better from preseason game 1 to preseason game 2?

“If he makes them, he got better. He made them in practice, had a good week, and, so that’s pretty much— they have to go in for a kicker. That’s how you evaluate them.”

CCD: We were talking off-air after you came on last week too and said he started off the season last year kind of on the wrong end of things and then improved as the season went on. Is that just getting the jitters out if you’re a kicker and able to watch film like you said he was going to?

“I’ve done a lot of things out there. I haven’t kicked a field goal, so I don’t know. I think everybody had— if you care enough, you have jitters. I really try not to— I’m not overcoaching them. I’ll let Tom and Jeremy coach them, and Andy knows what he has to do to self-correct. I think his mental approach is really good. It doesn’t affect him a lot. It was good to see him bounce back, and I think that’s what you have to be able to do so that it doesn’t just snowball on you and become an issue.”

GH: You turned over almost half of this roster, which is somewhat unconventional for a team that went to the Super Bowl. Who’s emerged from your perspective on the leadership side of things?

“I mean, same guys that we’ve always had, coming back. A.J.’s been a good addition to that leadership, you know. Dre’Mont Jones has been a good addition. I think the leaders have kind of been the same. I think Milt [Milton Williams] helps us lead, and Marcus Jones and Mack Hollins do a fantastic job. Hunter Henry,most of our veteran players, I think, really in their own way have a good reach.”

CC: You had your second-to-last season here – you guys lost in ’07 in the Super Bowl. Is there anything that you glean from that experience and how you’re coaching this team about the hangover? Obviously many teams have lost the Super Bowl and struggled the year after. Is there anything that you learned there, or how Bill [Belichick] dealt with that, or that you’re trying to instill in your team this year?

“I couldn’t even remember. Yeah, I mean, what’d we do after the Super Bowl that year?”

CC: Well, Tom got hurt in week 1

“And we won 11 games.”

CC: Yep.

“And then I got traded, so—”

CC: You and [Matt] Cassel went to Kansas City.

“I honestly, I couldn’t remember what the focus was or …

GH: Hey, you said you don’t even remember Saturday, right There’s a memory fading fast. That might be a low T thing also.

“I just remember what’s important.”

CCD: Do you remember Kenny Chesney at practice the other day? Looked like you guys were chumming it up. Big country guy.

“I remember him being there. Came in for a day.”

“Did you want to get a picture or something with him, Courtney, or what did you?”

CCD: I would have. Yeah, I think that Kenny Chesney’s on my list of like – starstruck. I would be starstruck by Kenny Chesney. It would go like Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Kenny Chesney. Oh, No, Luke Combs before Kenny Chesney.

“Oh wow.”

CCD: Yeah, but he’s up there.

GH: Did he download you on the wedding of the century?

“I don’t want to get anybody in trouble for any documents they may have had to sign at a wedding.”

“I’ll show you the picture someday.”

GH: Did you have to sign an NDA to go to that wedding?

“I can’t tell you.”

GH: Yeah… What are you looking at?

“I’m trying to look at the question. [Trying to] get out of here.”

GH: You can get out of here shortly. 7 of the— this team’s first 11 games are on the road. What, if anything, can you do to get those guys ready for that, or is that not even a thing?

“I mean, you just have to, handle the environment, and certainly that’ll be a great test on the opening night. Play sound. I think all the things that we did last year that we’ll have to repeat here to be successful on the road, to be able to get off to a good start, to be able to handle the critical situations, the noise on third down. Take care of the football. That’s a good recipe here for winning on the road.”

(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.)

About Ian Logue

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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