Head Coach Mike Vrabel 10/5: "We have to improve along the way, and this was the next step we needed to take"

Mike Vrabel (0:08)

Karen missed a good one.

SPEAKER_2 (0:13)

What are you seeing with the Patriots?

Mike Vrabel (0:17)

Well, I just, one, I'm proud of both of them. You know, being able to emotionally come back here for staff and be into this thing all week. They're a really good leader for us, stack a couple of really good games together. There's a lot of trust. And again, we're going to move the ball around, right? We're going to move the ball. Everybody helped us again the night.

And I think just a really gutty performance from Drake. Really just continue to enjoy watching him grow and lead this football team. And, you know, it was good for us to, again, we'd love to have a win by two scores, but being able to come back and execute in a critical situation, take the clock down, you know, and win it on our terms.

SPEAKER_3 (0:59)

Well, at this day, maybe, about the mental resilience of your team, you have to come back and execute right through the mouth, what do you think about that?

Mike Vrabel (1:06)

Well, I mean, that's how we practice. I mean, we were talking about taking the next step, and we got off to a really good start defensively and kind of just beat ourselves a little bit from the details in the first half. Offense came back when we needed them in the second half. And defensively, you know, just it's a huge challenge, you know, to defend them. And we got some stops. We didn't get as many as we wanted to, but we got enough to give ourselves a chance in the end. So a lot of credit to everybody on defense and Zach and his staff and everybody over there.

SPEAKER_2 (1:40)

What did you see in game prep that, you know, you try to exploit going into Europe, their uses in Europe and it's going into the second game?

Mike Vrabel (1:50)

We just try to prepare and try to focus on getting better each and every day. Felt like if we could protect them. And, you know, we did a nice job. They started blitzing. They started blitzing in the fourth quarter. We hit a couple of plays that I felt were the difference. And when they started blitzing and started heating us up, that we were able to hit some plays and some X plays against it. So that was probably the difference for us being able to not let the blitz affect us, okay?

SPEAKER_3 (2:16)

Can you explain to Drake kind of just simply settling down and look like, specifically against athletes when they get spooked early and get pressure?

Mike Vrabel (2:24)

Um, you know, just the game is not over in the first series. You know, sure, we'll want to start faster, but we finished really well and, you know, settled down. So again, I'm just really proud of the whole team for being able to come into this road environment. We talk about a lot of other people that had cracks of beating them here. You know, for 14 games, they had their opportunity, and we and those players took advantage of that opportunity and beat a really good football team that hasn't lost here much. Mike, your thoughts on Ian's kick? Well, I just, when you can see when he's building some confidence in his swing, it's just, it looks good. I don't know much about kicking other than it just looks like a good driver. When those pros hit it right down the middle, there's some balance to it, and there's some calmness, and I think he's been working really hard. And to Tom and Jeremy, they've been working hard with them as well to maintain that consistency, a consistent swing. And I'm excited, I'm happy for them, happy for all those guys, especially Andy and Julian and Bryce, who have worked so hard. You know, it's funny, we just talked about all these blocks around the league, and trying to get these guys to practice field goal protection on a Wednesday in October, I thought would be a lot harder than what it was. They really just bought into it at pad level, and every single rep, when you think in the middle of practice, they could get lazy. So we asked them to focus on it. We asked them to treat each kick like it was a game winner all week. And the protection was sound, and you see around the league that these kicks are getting blocked. And so, obviously, they practiced it, they recognized how important it was, and we were able to execute there at the end.

I mean, we're just a great performance by our defense, and we had a couple of leaky ones, and I thought that they tackled okay, and I thought we had a good scheme, and they executed it, but, you know, all the credit goes to the players who would like to be able to get Josh a couple of times, but that's no easy task. So in the end, we made a few more plays than they did. Well, I mean, we're confident coming in here, so I guess it will probably help, but we'll have to start over and continue to improve. We talked about how we have to improve along the way, and this was the next step that we needed to take, so we'll pick up the pieces and get back to work as soon as we get on the plane, and it will be another team that will be waiting for us on the road in New Orleans.