Head Coach Mike Vrabel on WEEI 1/12: "We believe in each other"

Greg Hill (0:00)

Good morning, Coach.

Mike Vrabel (0:00)

Good morning.

Greg Hill (0:01)

Victory shot Monday here. Let's go. Let's do it. What a win. My Lord, my goodness.

A tradition for us with the coach after a win. A tradition.

Mike Vrabel (0:16)

That is unlike any other.

Greg Hill (0:17)

It is a tradition unlike any other. How's the lip?

Mike Vrabel (0:20)

It's fine.

Greg Hill (0:21)

You're okay?

Mike Vrabel (0:22)

Yeah.

Greg Hill (0:22)

All right.

Mike Vrabel (0:23)

If I was fine the second it happened.

Greg Hill (0:26)

Milton Williams said afterwards, he forgot you weren't wearing a helmet, but maybe going forward, that might be something you want to do out there on the sidelines.

Mike Vrabel (0:32)

Wear a helmet or remind them that I'm not wearing one.

Greg Hill (0:36)

Probably a good idea to remind them of that. Well, not an offensive shootout. Thank you.

Mike Vrabel (0:42)

These are delicious.

Greg Hill (0:42)

Blueberries. Those are for you. Complementary. Not a shootout game, but one in which the defense was extraordinary.

Mike Vrabel (0:53)

Yeah. Played a lot of great efforts from everybody. And I mentioned this last night, we play a lot of people on defense. Everybody has a different role sometimes on third down, first and second down. And that's great to see, you know, just that everybody's locked in and they feel like their role is important, which it is, and doing a great job from the staff to get everybody kind of in the right spots, to be able to help us and rotate and get guys in there.

SPEAKER_3 (1:23)

Now, Robert Splane said after the game, some of the guys from the Chargers were didn't know what you guys are running defensively coverage wise. In that game yesterday, it looked like you brought a little bit more pressure than normal. Was it something specific against the Chargers and what pressure did to them?

Mike Vrabel (1:38)

Well, sometimes we don't know what coverage we're writing. So that's a good thing. We did try to mix in the pressure. You know, again, sometimes that's how it goes. You just have to rely on different elements and to be able to mix it up. And, you know, when you do that, the secondary has to be really good. The pressure has to get there. And, you know, when we did pressure, I felt like it was impactful.

Greg Hill (2:08)

So did you change the mac and cheese or you didn't change?

Mike Vrabel (2:10)

No, we don't. We didn't change the mac and cheese.

Greg Hill (2:12)

No change on the mac and cheese.

Mike Vrabel (2:13)

You don't experiment on Thanksgiving.

Greg Hill (2:14)

Okay.

Stacey (2:16)

Despite the split lip for Milton Williams to have kind of the exclamation mark at the end of that one, dealing with injury throughout the season, to make that come back and perform the way he is, how proud are you of him?

Mike Vrabel (2:27)

Well, I mean, he wants that role. He wants to be able to do those things. We saw him do that at different times earlier in the season. And then, you know, he had missed a few weeks and, you know, worked hard to get back. And he was able to get to do some stuff at the end of the regular season, just to be prepared for this game and to be able to work through some of those things that are associated when you're coming back from an ankle sprain. So I think those are all things that are to his credit. I think to the staff's credit, to the training staff, and everybody involved with that to kind of map that out and be ready, you know, have him ready and where he needs to be to impact games in January.

SPEAKER_3 (3:11)

Now, when you look at the other side of the football offensively, you guys had some struggles when it came to their pass rush a little bit, some stunts in games. Are there other things that you can take from this game to say, especially for the younger guys, hey, we need to be a little bit more alert for this moving forward?

Mike Vrabel (3:27)

Yeah, we always do. You know, when we throw a quick game, we can't progress back through. I mean, that's, you know, there's a lot of things we could call the line. And, you know, Drake knows that when we call a quick game, if it's not there, you can't sit there. You know, it's just not the recipe.

And in that situation, we reserve the right to punt and take care of the football and where the game was. And so there's a lot of things for us to improve on. Starting at the top all the way down. And I think that's what's been great about this thing, is that we've all been willing to accept responsibility and improve and be critical of our performances and try to get better. Because that's what we've talked about, that the teams that continue to improve are the ones that stick around.