Head Coach Mike Vrabel 11/9: "I love coaching them. They fight. They compete"

Mike Vrabel (0:01)

Are you excited, Nicole? A little, you're ready, I can tell. I can see it in your face. Karen been texting you or this is an original? Good, let me see what you got.

Well, those are important, those were important. We needed it, situational football. We'll talk through all those things. And again, he was thinking the right thing. And today in the game, the way that it was, they needed two touchdowns, I think it was okay, but we made it a little closer. We knew it would be difficult coming down here, but two explosive plays. And then, I think really Kyle's play early. And we really needed that one. That was the one that we were talking about, just needing one play, and he hit it and it was great to see him have that success.

SPEAKER_2 (0:57)

Mike, how much did you like the fight of your team in this one?

Mike Vrabel (1:02)

I always love the fight. I mean, that's why I love coaching them, is that they fight and they compete. It's not always perfect. It's never going to be perfect. But I love the way that they compete. You know, you're going to have some time, that, you know, when if you strike out, you got to go to the dugout and be pissed for a couple seconds and then you got to go play the rest of the game. So we tell them, you know, take take 30 seconds, be pissed. But we got to go play. And it was a long game. It's a tough place to play. It was it was warm and they're and they're good.

SPEAKER_3 (1:33)

Mike, you had three touchdowns of 50-plus yards that were all scored by rookies. What does that say about their dependability and just being able to lead on so they're doing that?

Mike Vrabel (1:44)

Well, we're going to need everybody throughout this season. We're going to need everybody as this thing goes on. With Kaishan being out, that was an opportunity for Kyle. With Remandre being out, led more opportunities for Travion. They battled through. I met, I got wore out running out there to see how our guys were doing as many times as I did. But I'm proud of the guys that battled and competed and laid it on the line.

SPEAKER_2 (2:09)

Mike, can you talk about the end of the first half sequence? Did you tell Drake to go down on purpose on first down?

Mike Vrabel (2:16)

It was a huge, huge play for us on fourth down. We've got confidence in our guys. And so to be able to have confidence in them at that moment and then come through, that's about players and not necessarily play. So I was really excited and proud of Steph and Drake for scoring when we were and being able to end the half with the football in our hands.

SPEAKER_2 (2:40)

What about the first down? Do you want to work in clock because of their time on the situation?

Mike Vrabel (2:44)

Like I said, we're just really excited that we could end the ball in our hands at the end of the first half and then be able to come out in the second half. We have to do a better job of trying to double them up.

But we got some stops defensively. We went three and out a few times offensively. But in the end, we got the stops when we needed it.

SPEAKER_2 (3:06)

But how important was the touchdown before that time?

Mike Vrabel (3:08)

Huge, huge. I mean, obviously, I made no points. I made a decision to go forward. I trust our players and they came through. They made me look good.

SPEAKER_4 (3:17)

Mike, was it important to you to coach the aggressive style?

Mike Vrabel (3:23)

Well, I think that this, you know, anything in life, you're going to have to certainly put some chips in the pot to be able to win something. Can't sit around and wait and hope that they, you know, just hand it to you. Sometimes you can, but most of the time in life, you got to be able to risk something to get something in return. So, can't win nothing you don't put in the middle.

SPEAKER_4 (3:48)

Two final questions?

SPEAKER_2 (3:49)

Let's turn around of getting the points to end it out and then come right back. Get the points, oh, nice.

Mike Vrabel (3:54)

Huge, huge. And then we got some stops early. We, you know, again, the first drive and the last drive were the worst ones of the game. Other than that, you know, we got some stops in the red zone when we needed it. We got some three and outs. Guys played hard and they earned being tired. And they are tired and we'll have to get them back. And we got a short game, short week, and excited to move on.