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New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel speaks to the media during a press conference after a NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo\/John Amis)<\/p>\nSAN JOSE, Calif. \u2014 Most Friday mornings, Stefon Diggs is a little late to the Patriots\u2019 team meeting.<\/p>\n
If Diggs isn\u2019t late, he ducks out after 20-25 minutes for the same reason he\u2019s normally tardy.<\/p>\n
But Mike Vrabel doesn\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n
Even a No. 1 receiver has to go No. 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cLittle buddy\u2019s gotta take a poop,\u201d Vrabel often says as Diggs exits a room full of chuckles.<\/p>\n
Diggs is extremely regular, something you wouldn\u2019t know unless you\u2019re a regular inside Vrabel\u2019s team meetings. In those meetings, you would learn \u201clittle buddy\u201d is a nickname Vrabel gives just about every player, save for the linemen. It\u2019s his way of tweaking them, reminding them who\u2019s boss. Even Drake Maye, from time to time, is Vrabel\u2019s little buddy.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody gets it,\u201d said Pats receiver Pop Douglas.<\/p>\n
According to veteran players and well-traveled assistants, Vrabel\u2019s meetings are a unique experience inside the NFL. He will vacillate between serious football talk, including the tiniest minutiae of situational football and referee tendencies, to jokes and X-rated zingers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just got so many one-liners,\u201d said outside linebackers coach Mike Smith, now on his sixth NFL team. \u201cHe\u2019s the best I\u2019ve ever seen at it. He really is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several players declined to reveal Vrabel\u2019s most memorable lines, insisting they are too profane.<\/p>\n
\u201cVrabes says some wild stuff,\u201d Hunter Henry said.<\/p>\n
But some one-liners are so good Patriots quarterbacks coach Ashton Grant won\u2019t let himself forget. Grant keeps a running list of Vrabel quotes on his iPhone, which he scrolled Monday at Super Bowl Opening Night. Grant found only one PG-rated entry. He read it aloud: \u201cThere are two places you can stay for free: in your lane and out of my business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant chuckled to himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say we do a good job of having fun in our team meetings and keeping it light, yet serious,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think (Vrabel) does a really good job with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christian Barmore is one of the more frequent targets of Vrabel\u2019s cracks. Barmore sits in the front of the room, right next to fellow defensive tackle Milton Williams, who is often spared during meetings. Though Vrabel will criticize Williams, his highest-paid player at $104 million, when appropriate.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not really clowning me. He will call us out,\u201d Williams said. \u201cHe\u2019ll clown Will, though. Will\u2019s his baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ah, yes. Will Campbell. Vrabel\u2019s first draft pick in New England, and the Louisiana love child he never had.<\/p>\n
Campbell and Vrabel are unusually close for a head coach and 21-year-old left tackle, close enough Vrabel lets Campbell run part of his Friday meetings with a weekly \u201cweekend update\u201d segment. During Campbell\u2019s segment, he addresses the team from the front of the room a la a news anchor. He covers pertinent information, like the weather forecast for the Patriots\u2019 upcoming game, and reads scripted jokes he wrote with John \u201cStretch\u201d Streicher, Vrabel\u2019s right-hand man and vice president of football operations and strategy.<\/p>\n
For example, the Friday before the AFC Championship Game, Campbell\u2019s weekend update featured team awards. Not MVP, Offensive Player of the Year or Rookie of the Year, but honors like the Dwarf award, which he split between Douglas and defensive captain Marcus Jones, who both stand at 5-foot-8.<\/p>\n
But before teammates laughed at one another, Vrabel had them busting a gut over Campbell losing more than $1,000 in a matter of minutes.<\/p>\n
New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel speaks to the media during a press conference after a NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo\/John Amis)<\/p>\n
In early November, Vrabel discovered the Patriots\u2019 offensive linemen abide by a fine system they designed to keep one another accountable and simultaneously raise money for an end-of-season trip they planned to take together. Players are fined if they commit basic football mistakes or otherwise find themselves in unfavorable situations during the season, like hearing Vrabel call them out by name in a team meeting.<\/p>\n
But instead of simply sharing he found out about the fine system, Vrabel used it against his O-linemen. More specifically, Campbell.<\/p>\n
That week, Vrabel pulled up clips of the Patriots offense in a team meeting. Standard stuff. Then, he turned to his young tackle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill, what\u2019s the call here?\u201d Vrabel asked.<\/p>\n
There went $100.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill,\u201d Vrabel repeated.<\/p>\n
Make it $200.<\/p>\n
\u201cC\u2019mon, Will.\u201d<\/p>\n
$300.<\/p>\n
Players quickly got wise to their coach\u2019s antics, and the room echoed with roaring laughter. By the end, Vrabel said Campbell\u2019s name 11 times in that meeting alone.<\/p>\n
But when Vrabel called on a veteran, like center Garrett Bradbury, he refrained from name-calling.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey center, what do we do here?\u201d he\u2019d ask Bradbury.<\/p>\n
Then, before long, it was back to: \u201cHey, Will. What\u2019s the call here, Will?\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, it\u2019s not all fun and games and fines in a Vrabel team meeting. He can be stern and harsh, and is always direct. One comment shot at rookie left guard Jared Wilson, telling him to \u201cjust f\u2014ing block the guy,\u201d cut to Wilson\u2019s core after a poor performance during the Pats\u2019 win at Tennessee. But Wilson shook it off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand that he was a player, and he knows he\u2019s done everything. He jokes with players, jokes with the coaches, so it\u2019s just so natural for him. He\u2019s one of us,\u201d said rookie left guard Jared Wilson. \u201cAnd it\u2019s easy to laugh when he makes jokes, because you know it\u2019s nothing personal. It will never be personal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Second-year safety Dell Pettus says times like that, when Vrabel will hammer a player\u2019s mistake to hold him accountable, are quite common. Back in the spring, Pettus said, Vrabel\u2019s tone conveyed everything about how seriously he took<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember being like, these folks are not playing around. These coaches are serious about what they say,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are still plenty of those moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
But perhaps the most animated Vrabel gets is when he\u2019s sharing what he calls \u201cfootball porn.\u201d These are plays of physical dominance and textbook technique; the essence of the game on full display.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe showed us one the other day of this guard pulling, and the guard just ran right over a linebacker,\u201d Smith said. \u201cAnd (Vrabel)\u2019s like, \u2018That\u2019s football porn, boys! Hell, we could watch this 10 times.’\u201d<\/p>\n
And maybe they did.<\/p>\n
In a Vrabel team meeting there are few constants. Wednesday and Thursday meetings kick off at 9 a.m. and Friday mornings start at 8. You will laugh and learn, and you will be on time.<\/p>\n
Unless you\u2019re a star receiver with a GI tract that runs like clockwork.<\/p>\n
In that case, just take your time, little buddy.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE, Calif. \u2014 Most Friday mornings, Stefon Diggs is a little late to the Patriots\u2019 team meeting.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[95040,833,7,6441,838,1167,249,2326,2094,6,835,832,208,836,834,831,837,41484,23840,16165,103731],"class_list":{"0":"post-726017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-2026-super-bowl","9":"tag-drake-maye","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-josh-mcdaniels","12":"tag-mike-vrabel","13":"tag-new-england","14":"tag-new-england-patriots","15":"tag-newengland","16":"tag-newenglandpatriots","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-nfl-news","19":"tag-nfl-rumors","20":"tag-patriots","21":"tag-patriots-2025","22":"tag-patriots-news","23":"tag-patriots-rumors","24":"tag-robert-kraft","25":"tag-super-bowl-2026","26":"tag-super-bowl-60","27":"tag-super-bowl-lx","28":"tag-super-bowl-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116006231654841847","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}