It didn’t take long for the conversation to shift to Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels after Sunday’s 20-13 loss to the Raiders.

“We have to pick something each play and decide how we want to run it, but not be tentative and making sure that — we’re never going to be perfect, right? You just want to be precise,” Vrabel said Monday morning. “I think that’s going to be the message to us going forward.

“We can’t think that every play is going to be perfect,” Vrabel continued. “It’s never going to be that way.”

Vrabel’s press conference with reporters, which featured similar sentiments as his weekly appearance on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show,” prompted some to question whether the veteran head coach was irritated with the offensive play-calling and adjustments from Week 1.

During the Patriots Talk podcast, insiders Tom E. Curran and Phil Perry discussed Vrabel’s comments and the notion pertaining to McDaniels.

🔊 Patriots Talk podcast: Digging deep into the ‘black box’ of Sunday’s loss… is it too early to PANIC about Drake Maye? | Listen & Subscribe | Watch on YouTube

“What do you infer from this?” Curran asked Perry. “Because when I’m listening to 98.5 The Sports Hub from 2-6, it’s the Felger & Mazz program also simulcast on NBC Sports Boston, they seized on the idea that Vrabel is all over McDaniels. Bad play-calling. He didn’t do a good enough job.

“Now, they love a little bit of turmoil over there. … But do you infer that he’s pissed at Josh McDaniels? What do you infer from the notion that, ‘We’re trying to be a little too fine. We’re trying to be a little bit too particular about what we can do. Can we just line up and run the play?'”

Perry responded.

“I do think that the offensive coordinator is factoring into the calculus there somewhere. I think the quarterback probably does, too,” Perry said. “Because the quarterback has a lot of freedom at the line of scrimmage in this Josh McDaniels offense.

“So I wonder whether it’s McDaniels or Maye or both, and if Vrabel doesn’t look at them and say, ‘Can we just take it easy on all the checks and the line? And alerting the second play? And making making sure that, OK, we’ve got the front numbers counted out and the MIKE is all pointed out and, oh boy, this run play is not going to really be perfect for this so we better get into something else?’

“Mike Vrabel strikes me as the kind of guy who would be OK with every once in a while, ‘Can you just call the play and run it and just go execute the play and keep it simple, stupid?'” Perry continued. “I think that was the vibe, that was the feeling. I’m trying not to put words in his mouth, but that was sort of the feeling that I got from Vrabel both in his meeting with us and in his conversation on WEEI.”

It’s an interesting dynamic given the fact that McDaniels is a proven offensive coordinator with six Super Bowl rings and head coaching experience himself. Might he take issue with Vrabel’s comments and the discourse? It also could be a healthy disagreement, Curran said.

“When a player goes to the line of scrimmage, he often has two plays in mind. There’s the play that’s called and then, when you alter, you’re going to another one. Or sometimes a third one. But there’s a fail-safe,” Curran said. “You’re trying to get into — as Tom Brady always talked about, getting out of a bad play is almost as important as getting into a good one. So, he’s trying to get out of bad plays. Maybe they weren’t that bad, is what Vrabel is saying.”

Perry added: “Maybe that’s what he (Vrabel) saw on tape.”

McDaniels likely will be asked for his take the next time he meets with the media.

Also in this episode:

Can the Patriots get Drake Maye to slow down physically and mentally?

The good and bad from the offensive line in Week 1.

Are the Patriots not as good as expected on defense?

What’s going on with the Dolphins?