{"id":972969,"date":"2026-08-14T13:15:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/972969\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:15:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:15:15","slug":"patriots-rookie-motivated-by-mike-vrabels-in-game-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/972969\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots rookie motivated by Mike Vrabel\u2019s in-game challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Gabe Jacas had an eventful preseason debut. Not only did the New England Patriots rookie play a combined 37 snaps between defense and special teams, he also registered five total tackles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Three of those takedowns came in the kicking game, which was good enough for the team lead on Thursday night. The output did not happen by accident, though. Instead, it was preceded by Mike Vrabel personally challenging Jacas early on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cHe was just like, \u2018I\u2019m tired of seeing you get blocked,\u2019\u201d the young outside linebacker explained after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patspulpit.com\/new-england-patriots-news\/133357\/mike-vrabel-confidence-andy-borregales-3-miss-performance\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Patriots\u2019 13-13 tie against the Indianapolis Colts<\/a>. \u201cI was like, \u2018S\u2014t, I\u2019m not getting blocked.\u2019 So, that\u2019s what I did. Vrabel demands the best out of his players, so that\u2019s what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">According to New England\u2019s head coach, the challenge stemmed from Jacas\u2019 effort on a kickoff coverage play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cI challenged him on a kickoff, and he made a tackle,\u201d Vrabel said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think that his efforts were maybe good enough on the kickoff. I didn\u2019t expect that the guy that was blocking him to be able to block him, and then I challenged him, and he came up with a tackle on the kickoff. So that was a positive, and then we\u2019ll just keep coaching him just like the rest of the guys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Jacas, the Patriots\u2019 second-round draft selection back in April, was one of several rookies seeing prominent snaps versus the Colts. Seven first-year players started the contest: four on offense and three, including the Illinois product, on the defensive side of the ball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">While Jacas\u2019 performance overall had its ups and downs, which is not uncommon for a rookie playing in his first ever game against professionals, he felt good about it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cJust having the opportunity to go out there and play the game of football, I love it,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery snap I had, just going out there, running around. Very valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gabe Jacas had an eventful preseason debut. Not only did the New England Patriots rookie play a combined&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":972970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52113,726,20134,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":["post-972969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-england-patriots","tag-football","tag-new-england","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","tag-new-england-patriots-news","tag-new-england-patriots-preseason","tag-newengland","tag-newenglandpatriots","tag-nfl","tag-patriots"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117094050910400892","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972969","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=972969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/972970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}