Here’s what New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel had to say during his press conference during Patriots OTAs on Tuesday.
On his early impressions of Drake May and how he’s been adapting to learning a new system:
“Well, I think everybody’s worked extremely hard, including Drake, to pick up what we want to do offensively and defensively. Now that has to start to translate onto the practice field in a spring setting without pads. I think that we’re off to a good start. I think we had a positive day. We were able to mix some speed stuff in and some competitive stuff to a point. Kept guys off the ground, got a bunch of looks and a bunch of reps. So I think we’re off to a good start, and Drake’s a part of that.”
On this stage, and the things that he looks for from his players to get better as they go about this stage of the process:
“I think that that’s probably an interesting question. Just a dynamic through the spring is the offensive line. I think you can maybe evaluate some pass protection or somewhat footwork, but it’s hard to evaluate the run game. Defensive line, it’s a difficult time of year for them. They’re wired a certain way and they want to do things that affect the quarterback and create a new line of scrimmage, and you have to pull them back to a sense. This is a passing camp. This is a non-contact camp time of year. But I think the receivers and the DBs can certainly look to mirror and shadow and react and still go make plays on the football and try to stay up. It’s hard to… Maybe the running backs, you can evaluate, are they picking up the right person in protection? Not necessarily sure if they’re going to be able to block them, but are they getting the right guy? Quarterbacks, operation, the urgency in which we practice our things that are important, our tempo, the way that we finish plays, our effort, and continue to build the identity. Are we taking care of the football when we’re running with it in the open field, things like that?”
On when he mentioned not wanting take guys to the ground, how he balances …
“It’s not that I would love to take guys to the ground. That’s okay. I’m joking. But these are the rules that everybody’s just come to live by in the National Football League, and that’s great. It’s just explaining to the players what it is that we have to do and what we have to try to get accomplished. So go ahead and finish your question.”
On how he can accomplish the physicality that he wants at this stage while still making sure that …
“I don’t think that you can. I don’t. I think that you could focus on pad level, you could focus on hand placement, but that physicality is not something that’s going to be identified over the course of the next four weeks. With the understanding that this is obviously a noncontact campaign we’re talking about, not being able to get a good sense of where maybe running backs are from a physical standpoint.”
On if he can talk about where Rhamondre Stevenson is at this stage, along with the fact he’s going through a personal thing, but maybe the overall value that he has to this franchise:
“We’re extremely excited to have him with us. Have been in constant communication with him, and obviously, our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family as they heal and, they grieve. I want to be a part of that to help him and get to know him. I’d met him early on, and then he went back, and now those conversations have just been over the telephone. So, when you start to evaluate just the season, and you watch the effort that he played with when he didn’t have the football, he played extremely fast without the football, his ability to step up and protect, is taking care of a teammate, is protecting the guy with the ball. He did that on numerous occasions. You always saw him downfield when he didn’t have the ball. So he’s going to be a large part of what we do, and it’ll just have to determine where he’s at when he’s back here.”
On what constitutes a good day for him at OTAs and what would make him happy at the end of today:
“Again, I’m going to set myself up for failure because you’re going to look and read off every single one I say here. That we’re in and out of the huddle, that there’s clean substitution, that there’s communication. You hear the defense making checks when somebody on the offense moves or motions, there’s coordination, and that the offense is moving with urgency, and that the play clock isn’t sitting at zero for four seconds, and all the operational things. Then obviously, there’s got to be a level of execution when we’re in the speed, and then when we get to the jog through, can we practice at a tempo that’s less than 100% and still get something out of it?”
On when the competition truly starts from a traditional standpoint and for guys to try to earn spots:
“Well, I think that it already has. I hope that it already has. Life’s a competition. Everything we do every day, we’re trying to improve, and we’re trying to do better than the next person. But whether that’s a competitiveness to know what to do, to be able to play more than one position, to go extra reps when somebody’s down, to take advantage of opportunities, young guys popping in there. Third group, they do a nice job, then they get elevated, they get some reps with the twos, and see how they do with those opportunities. I think that there’s always a level of competition in what we do. It just may not be as physical as what it would be in training camp.”
On how much evaluation is going on for the coaching staff right now versus the installation of the teaching that obviously they’re doing this spring:
“Well, there’s certain things you have to maybe change the way that you evaluate. Do they know their assignment? Can they adjust? Do they make the same mistake over and over? Then there’s a level of physical ability that we have to be able to evaluate. So, I would say that there’s still an evaluation, even though we don’t have pads on.”
On the fact there’s been a lot of talk about the culture he’s building and all that, and just from the early days of the team all being together, what he’s noticing from them all coming together:
“I think there’s an excitement, there’s an energy. I think there’s a willingness of players that walk in and want to improve and want to get to know the new players and the ones that they’re familiar with from last year, and the coaches and everything else. So, we’re just constantly trying to build that each and every day.”
On the fact we know that Stefon Diggs has been dealing with last year’s injury, and if there’s anyone else that we shouldn’t expect to see based on coming back from something from last year:
“There’ll be a group of guys that will be modified today, or won’t be doing stuff. It’s a long list. I’m not going to go through it, but there’ll be a few guys. They’ll be doing some individual, they’ll be doing some return to play, may do some jog through stuff at the end.”
On how he would describe the jump for running back and pass protection from the college game to the NFL, and how important these practices are for TreVeyon [Henderson] in particular as a young back:
“Well, these are mental reps. These are seeing things at speed. Until it’s full speed, the contact is really what we say. We want the blitzer to go as fast as he would, disguise the way he would, and try to time it up the way that he would. And then once he gets to the player that’s blocking him, then we’re going to ask them to stop and then be ready to go and sprint out of the stack and finish his play that way. So they’re good because there’s disguises, there’s moving parts, there’s other bodies. It’s not just a walk-through pace. So I think the tempo is going to allow them to identify the right person to protect and to block. And then we’ll see in training camp, if physically, they’ll be to do it, which by all counts, I think that they will.”
On how he looks at the NFL schedule as a head coach when it comes out:
“I just make sure that we’ve got 17 games. Nine of them are at home this year, and eight of them are on the road. Then we go from there. We’re so far from looking at opponents right now at this point in the game. We’re just really trying to focus on ourselves, individual improvement, continue to build the identity that we try to talk about. And that’s where my focus is today.”
On if he’s finalized the joint practices with the Commanders and Vikings:
“Yeah, I think for sure that the Washington Commanders will come here, and then they’ll play us. And then we are excited to go to Minnesota. It’s a good setup that they have, allows for great work, Kevin’s got a… The Vikings have an excellent football team and have worked with them before, so excited to go back up there. ”
On if he believes a young player needs to see the field consistently or with first-team drives consistently to become an effective leader in their locker room:
“No. I think that any player that comes here with a great attitude that knows what to do and plays a style and with the demeanor that we expect that does things the right way, that makes great decisions, will have an ability to lead someone or have some sort of leadership qualities, whether that’s with the third group, with the second group, or with the first group. But I don’t think that a young player has to be on a starting unit to be considered somewhat of a leader.”
On the fact we tend to overanalyze the lineups at times at this point of the season …
“That’s fair. ”
…on what his philosophy is when it comes to the depth chart, and if it’s veterans and then young guys earning it:
“It’s just kind of what we put together. Somebody’s got to go with 11. It’s going to be very fluid. You’ll see that a lot of people are getting a lot of different reps and a lot of different groupings, and wide receivers will rotate out of there, and some linemen will play a position, and then we’ll see if they can move over and play another position.”
“Again, you have a job to do. We have a job to do. We’re going to try to move guys around and put 11 out there every play.”
On the fact Milton Williams told us a story about how he enjoyed getting called out by you…
“First of all, that’s not being called out by me.”
On what was his experience:
“That was just an encouragement. No, it was… If you have the ability to do something, I think you should try to maximize that ability. I think it sends a great message to the team. We’re going to need our best players to play good every week for us to win. And that’s just another example of the leadership. And I found when one guy runs fast and other guys tend to run fast, and then the next, the more and more you see you got a bunch of guys trying to push each other and compete, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
On what he’s looking for, given the full locker room he has, from these guys in these early days:
“I think that when you say things like it’s a full room, I would say that 31 other teams… That’s okay, but 31 other teams are going to have 11 or twelve wide receivers at this point in time. So everybody’s room is full. There’s eleven or twelve. I would say that the players that aren’t available need to make sure that they’re doing everything they can to stay up mentally and continue to work hard to get back. The young players that are coming onto this roster have to earn a role, and the ones that are returning have a clean slate to go and compete, and whether that’s a carry-over position from last year or a new position. So we’re very early in the process, but we need that group to compete and have a willingness to go out there and help the quarterback through this spring process.”
“Thank you.”
(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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