Mike Vrabel: “Every Play is Critical.” | Patriots Press Conference

Mike Vrabel: “Every Play is Critical.” | Patriots Press Conference

Hey guys, how’s it going? How are you? Good. How are you? Great. Heard Karen’s doing a civic duty. Sophie, you got something? I’ll kick things off. Okay. With Milton Williams going on IR, I’m just curious how you feel about the depth behind him and just um which guys you’re kind of expecting to step up. Well, the same guys that I think have been playing. Eric Gregory played in the game for the first time. I thought he battled and is continuing to improve on the practice squad or excuse me in the show team stuff and practice and you know we’ll hopefully get Josh back and um I would say that you know Farms is doing a great job as well on the show team and is ready to um go in there any point. So I think we’re okay there as far as the depth and um you know we just have to keep working, keep moving along. How much does Milton meant to this defense, you know, for the first 10 to 12 weeks? You know, we won’t have Milt, you know, so for for the foreseeable future, he’ll work hard to get back, you know. So, that’s really where our focus is is not so much as a reflection as it is just focusing on how do we um get the guys ready to perform and and continue to improve. I think the thing we’re trying to get everybody to understand is how much this is a a progress league and to be able to uh improve as the season goes on and so we’ll have to do that without Milt who’s one of our contributors and uh you know he’s a big part of what we’ve done but we’ll have to do it without him here for a few weeks. I know with the inevitable domino effect that might occur, does this maybe change your thinking when it comes to using a guy like Ponga on special teams as well as offense? Well, those are things we have to consider, but it’s also um you know, we just we have to do everything that we can do to try to put the pieces together to help us win. And I know that, you know, we we just have to be able to to play the game and put the guys where we expect them to. And it any sort of injury can occur on any play at any point in time in in football. So, um, every play is critical. We’re block kicks this past week and on and on and on. So, we have to uh, you know, make sure that the 11 guys out there are the ones that give us the best chance and in those critical situations and kicking field goals and extra points is a critical situation. What have you seen from Brien Swinson on the practice squad? He’s worked hard. He’s improved. He’s worked hard in the weight room um and those, you know, changing his body and and getting stronger and learning special teams and um doing a good job there. Give us great look and those guys coaches have done a great job of improving a lot of those guys and and hopefully getting them ready here for when they have to play. Mike on him. Is this the time of year where uh you got to protect your guys you want to keep working with and you’ve spent time with like him, you know, developing because other teams can come on your practice while guys and try to take them away. Uh you know, there’s some of that. You know, there’s some of that. And again, it’s also about opportunity and when we feel like they’re ready for it and when they’ve earned it. And you know, in that case, um you know, I think Braden has. So, we’ll have to evaluate what he can do and and how he can help us and and get him ready to go. With Raandre and uh Kan, they we saw them practice it during the short week, but they ultimately did play on Thursday. Do you have any update on them um as a consider heading into this week? Um I would expect them to uh to be out there Wednesday and then again, we’ll see monitor how that goes. you know, to me when you come back, it’s just about, you know, the volume and handling what their their normal volume would be. Um, and and can they obviously, you know, do their job up to what we expect and what they expect it to be and and being able to protect themselves out there. Mike, just as sort of a a follow from the game, um, knowing you guys have moved on from it, but you might see some mobile quarterbacks, you are going to see some mobile quarterbacks down the line here. How helpful maybe is it just to have that film now having played fields and some of the design quarterback? Yeah, I think it’s always just to understand how fast they are and recreate the speed of a player like that. That’s hard. Uh whether that’s the design plays or the the the quarterback play extensions that that turn into chunk yardage. So, you know, there there’s a lot to that to to the run game and where those numbers get, you know, moved around, you know, the mobile quarterback and so, you know, we’ll have to play the run. uh much better. You know, obviously moving forward. Um Brown’s a great bat. You know, makes a lot out of nothing sometimes and cracks and his burst and his contact balance. So, uh he’s he’s been fun to watch. So, we’ll have to do a great job this week and but certainly being able to see some of those quarterback runs, I understand how quickly um you know they can get on the edge and you know there weren’t you know the ones that are critical are the you know down in the the goal line when they’re you know it’s three yard gain is a touchdown not a second and seven. How have you seen Dell Pettis grow in this system since the spring and also how has he maximized the opportunities he’s gotten in games? Dell continues to work hard and to work on communication and um core special teams player for us and learning multiple positions um in the defense back end uh working down as the the dime sometimes and sub and in two minute um and it’s been good to see him take advantage of the opportunities showed up made some plays and um working hard on all the little things that we give them each and every week. Coach, another few days off like you guys did this weekend. Would you rather both players and staff get away from the game completely or still kind of be engaged? whatever gets us back to to neutral and be able to uh you know move forward and and prepare and you know stay on our conditioning and you know but you know it’s a long stretch of games that we just had and you know I think that the energy is great right now where we’re at you know coming back in here on a Monday and meeting and and getting all those things reviewed and and working out and so those will be good stuff. We’d seen Darien previously be like the extra tight end at some back just Ben Brown got that opportunity. What led to him getting those and what did you think of his performance? What led and same thing that leads to every coach’s decision. It’s about the the trust that you have in a player is knows what to do and for Darian’s right there ready to go and um went with Ben. Ben’s done it a little bit earlier in the season. Carolina I think maybe or he played guard They’ve both been repping it. Um, you know, and just decided to go with Ben and, you know, I know Verdarian’s, um, you know, ready to go as well. Mike, earlier in the season, I had asked you about how you split your time between macro system stuff and micro technique stuff with guys. You told me you were still figuring it out with this team. Any update on how you’re kind of choosing to split your time with these guys and what’s working? It’s kind of all over the place really. Yeah, man. It’s I think I just try to spend as much time with each phase as I can and also figure out where I can help. You know, technique-wise, there’s things that I can talk about. I certainly can’t talk to about a a quarterback or, you know, a a running back as far as, you know, vision or something like that. Uh but there’s places where I feel like I could help from a technique perspective. and and when I do, I I try to help and try to, you know, figure out a way to to reach the player or help them or whatever it may be, something that maybe they haven’t looked at it in a particular light and uh help where I can, but there’s certainly places, you know, where I where I can’t and and shouldn’t. Like aside from the obvious uh where you’re picking up yardage or um in Thursday night’s case, you scored a touchdown, why do you like the pile push plays as much as you? Um, I think it just, you know, lends itself to what we want to be as as a as a team, as an organization is is rallying around, uh, you know, somebody that’s, you know, they’re in there trying to rip the ball away. They’re in there trying to hit them and whatever we can do to protect the guy with the ball, uh, is critical. And, um, you know, so it’s it’s to me it’s about protecting your teammates and protecting the guy with the ball. Can you can you practice those? It’s a phys looks like a physical play. Is it something you can practice during the week? Uh, we push things. Yeah, we can push things. With Darius Harris not being ahead of elevations, I see some of you guys would consider signing to the 53 just to, you know, keep around and contribute on special teams. Uh, yeah, we we would. I just don’t think physically right now Darius is going to be able to. So, we’ll have to see where that goes. You said in your video uh after the game that you were excited to not have to see the guys for a few days. I meant they were probably excited not to have to see me. I was gonna ask a two-way street. You said on the radio you went to Tennessee this weekend. How was your weekend? It was good. Thanks for asking. Greg Wilson’s talked about how defensive or offenses rather are using personnel basically to manipulate how defenses respond to them saying he’d really rather match if you were defensive coordinator matched by the situation over personnel. I’m curious what you think about that and have you seen that from defenses? Uh well, it comes down to down and distance. It comes down to, you know, are you okay if they want to run the ball versus uh smaller personnel groups defensively? If you’re okay with that, um you know, I think it’s just about also repping it. you know, you familiar with, you know, going big people versus their smaller groupings and, you know, getting lined up and adjusted and what coverage you want to play and based on, you know, outside linebackers may have to walk out or do different things at the line of scrimmage. So I think to me is a lot of it based on per uh downer distance and what those tendencies may be and you know but I think that there can be positives for for both groups you know kind of see what each week what their temperature is for it and if you know teams want to try to oneup you and and go bigger you know we’ll have to have answers and then if we do it you know what what are the some of the answers that the offensive uh coaches go to. I know we’ve talked about this, excuse me, a couple of times this year, but in the wake of the Jets game, any new thoughts about defensive slow starts? I know Robert kind of joked about even with us in the postgame press conference that look, you know, I know you guys are going to be looking for answers. Um, I was wondering if you had any sort of update. No, I don’t have any updates. I think we just uh have to be okay to give up a first down and get the drive stopped. You I mean, we have three three and outs in a row after that. um you know done a pretty good job playing defense and you know so again it’s an easy place to look we just have to I mean we get them in however many third downs and quarterback scrap I mean it’s just one play here one guy there and um you know I don’t want to just hit the panic button if they were scoring on every drive then we’d have a lot of issues certainly don’t want to let them score if they do get down there, we have to, you know, find ways to to force him to attempt field goals. And I think to me that that’s the biggest thing is that that we don’t give up touchdowns and we, you know, communicate better that we, you know, are able to defend, you know, whatever it is that they choose to do, whether that’s some sort of motion or picks or quarterback run game. And you know, so that that’s the biggest thing is that we force them to to kick field goals and that understand that it’s okay if you give up a first down, but we just have to be able to get the drive stopped. And to me, it seems like it’s either one or the other. You know, it’s either a three and out or uh a drive that leads to points. So, thank you.

Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel addresses the media on Monday, November 17, 2025.

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