Head Coach Mike Vrabel on WEEI 11/2: "We will try to do what we can to make the team better"

Greg Hill (0:00)

And with the coach, a quick victory shot here. After a wind yesterday.

Good morning, coach. Hold on, I gotta move that microphone down.

Mike Vrabel (0:12)

That'll give you high T right there.

Greg Hill (0:13)

Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir. Where are you on this?

Mike Vrabel (0:15)

That's a good read for you.

Greg Hill (0:17)

You like that read?

Mike Vrabel (0:18)

At 60, almost 60, huh?

Greg Hill (0:19)

Yeah, tomorrow.

Mike Vrabel (0:21)

Probably could use that.

Greg Hill (0:23)

Which one are you talking about?

Rockies Ace Hardware? No, nope, nope, the other one. Oh, I see. Yeah, the Men's Health.

Mike Vrabel (0:31)

Yep, Northeast.

Greg Hill (0:32)

I mean, I feel like for 60, I look pretty good, to be honest with you. I don't know how you feel. How old are you now?

Mike Vrabel (0:38)

51

Greg Hill (0:39)

All right. You look fantastic.

Mike Vrabel (0:40)

Thanks. You really do. You look great.

Greg Hill (0:45)

Where are you on this? You've been a player with the organization for a long time, and now the coach.

This whole thing about the Patriots struggling in Miami first half of the season, is that just statistical anomaly or is there something there?

Mike Vrabel (1:01)

I mean, I just, again, after however many games, it's probably normally not like it is yesterday. It's probably the heat and not playing very well or whatever it may be, but certainly we have to start games better. And I appreciate the way that the team responded and they came out in the second half. So I don't think it's a statistical anomaly. I mean, it's what the numbers say it is.

Greg Hill (1:27)

Yeah. How bad was that weather yesterday?

Mike Vrabel (1:31)

It was pretty bad early. I mean, I would say that it was getting ready to look like the Tampa Atlanta game was tracking that, but it looked like at about 5.3 or 6 It was going to probably get a little clearer, and it wasn't as bad.

Certainly, if we had played that game at 1 o'clock, it would have been interesting.

Greg Hill (1:52)

Not as bad as the seven-hour game you coached?

Mike Vrabel (1:54)

The eight-hour first game, yeah.

Greg Hill (1:56)

Eight-hour game that you coached up.

SPEAKER_3 (1:58)

Mike, when you look at the game and the adjustments that you made in the second half, we kind of have in this conversation, I thought it was more about you just basically went in there and chewed their ass out and said, we got to play better than this. And it wasn't about really changing Xs and Os. It was more about getting those guys to get their head out of it, in my opinion.

Mike Vrabel (2:22)

It's probably a little bit of both. I mean, we try to do, you know, things throughout the game that we're trying to make adjustments to, you know, plays that we maybe need to call again for whatever reason or make adjustments to plays that we call or things that we want to have up and say, hey, you know, let's be ready for these.

You know, whatever I say is pretty much whatever I feel, right or wrong. But, you know, I don't think it was just like, you know, it's like, here we are. We put ourselves in this position. We probably ought to start doing some things that help us get out of it.

SPEAKER_4 (3:03)

How much credit do you give to Ben Brown going in at left guard for that change in the offense from the first to the second half?

Mike Vrabel (3:09)

I mean, I think it had, you know, something to do with it. I mean, Ben competed and, you know, Walter competed and, you know, wanted to take a look at Ben. So, you know, I think it probably, you know, Ben played OK, played, you know, did well and, you know, things to improve on, but it was good to have him back out there. Do you guys think you mishandled the return of AJ Brown from his IR stint?

You know, we'll see where AJ's availability is this week.

SPEAKER_4 (3:42)

Was the new injury related at all to overcompensating for the high ankle sprain, or was that separate entirely?

Mike Vrabel (3:49)

Yeah, AJ wasn't available yesterday, he didn't travel with us, so we'll see where he is today. Looking forward to going over there and seeing him at treatment.

Greg Hill (3:57)

Yeah, we were just having an argument about it.

Mike Vrabel (3:59)

What's an argument look like for you guys? Well, we kind of look stern.

Greg Hill (4:04)