FOXBOROUGH – Temperatures around Gillette Stadium hovered around 35 degrees on Tuesday, but when you factored in the wind chill, it felt like an 18-degree day in Foxborough.
That’s why Mike Vrabel gave his veteran players the choice.
If they wanted, the team would practice inside their indoor facility to prepare for their Thursday night matchup against the New York Jets. However, Patriots veteran players voted ‘no’ and the team bundled up for a chilly Tuesday afternoon practice.
On Tuesday, Vrabel also revealed that he tried to cut a team meeting 25 minutes shorter to give players extra time to rest. Once again, veteran players asked not to cut any meeting time leading up to this matchup with a division rival.
The 8-2 Patriots don’t want to let up.
“I think it’s to not take shortcuts. It’s to not let little things lack or slack,” Drake Maye said on Tuesday. “I think the biggest thing is to stay with what we’ve been doing. Try to keep the same mentality. He asked today to go inside, and we wanted to go outside. Just trying to not let the little things go and know that these will matter and have mattered for us in the past and will show up again.”
In 10 weeks, this team has already matched the win total from the previous two Patriots seasons combined. They’re riding a seven-game win streak, which is the longest in New England since 2021.
This season, they’ve already surpassed expectations and are now heavily favored heading into Thursday night’s game against the Jets. They’re about to face a team with a 2-7 record that won’t have their No. 1 receiver (Garrett Wilson) and just sold off two of their best players (Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner) at the NFL trade deadline.
Despite having 15 players start this week on the injury report, Vrabel’s team is so dialed in that they don’t want extra time off or to practice inside where there are heaters on a cold day.
The Patriots coach credited his veteran players.
“I think it’s the leadership. I think that the guys that we have here – I think it starts with the coaches being able to give them a clear message. I think what the expectations are, and I think the consistency, they’ve appreciated that,” Vrabel said. “For example, trying to just move the time back to give them some more rest, but not shorten the meetings. I said, ‘Hey, I can give up 25 minutes on Thursday in the squad.’ They all were like, ‘No, that’s an important meeting.’ The leaders were like, ‘That’s an important meeting. We do the mental performance. We like the questions and all that.’ I said, ‘OK, then we’ll figure out a way to make the schedule.’
“I just used that as an example that it wasn’t a setup question, it was me just trying to find some extra time to give them in the meetings, but also come in a little later. I appreciated that, that they thought that was an important part of their day, as well. I think it is just about the leadership.”
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