Head Coach Mike Vrabel on WEEI 11/3: "We have to put everything we have into each week"

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Good morning, Coach.

Mike Vrabel (0:00)

Good morning, happy birthday.

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Thank you. May I offer a toast? We haven't done that on our victory shot.

SPEAKER_3 (0:08)

Yeah, Chase, I know, we got one. I got one, ready to go.

SPEAKER_1 (0:12)

I would like to sincerely thank you for bringing joy back to our region on Sundays. Thank you, can I get a drink?

SPEAKER_4 (0:19)

It's gorgeous.

Mike Vrabel (0:20)

All right.

SPEAKER_1 (0:24)

All right, there we go.

Mike Vrabel (0:25)

It tastes so good.

SPEAKER_1 (0:26)

It really is good.

SPEAKER_4 (0:28)

It clears you right out, you know?

SPEAKER_1 (0:30)

It does.

Mike Vrabel (0:31)

When your pipes need cleaning.

SPEAKER_1 (0:33)

Yeah, if your pipes need to be cleaned. I hope you had your blood pressure pills for the end of that one yesterday. The heart pills? Yeah, you saved them. Well, Steph Diggs, I think, afterwards said it was a win that felt like a loss.

Mike Vrabel (0:46)

I don't want to ever say that, but they're hungry for more. They want to continue to execute for four quarters, put it all together. There are glimpses of freeing out, good punt return, offense scoring, doing those things, and then there's glimpses of, what's that? So I think they want to get back to the, where we're all in tune with each other, playing together, feeding off each other, and that's some of the mistakes that showed up yesterday.

SPEAKER_4 (1:20)

Drake Maye's awareness after the game, when especially talking about the fumble, where he said, I maybe need to stop trying to break tackles against guys that I can't do so. Is that something that just will come with age, or is that something that he should know already?

Mike Vrabel (1:35)

No, I mean, I think that that's, again, I've never carried the football in the middle of the field. I mean, other than a few interceptions that didn't go very far returns. And I think that that's just a feel. He's practiced ball security. He is athletic. But when he's hit in the middle of the pocket, and he's looking down field, we have to do a better job of protecting him, especially in the middle of the pocket. We've talked about that since we've got here, how we want to build pass protection, and how we want to do those things. So I think there's one thing when he's out running in traffic, he's got to make a great decision. But it's also hard to plant your back foot and be looking down the field. We'll have to get some of those things corrected.

SPEAKER_3 (2:16)

Mike, you talk about how hard it is to win in the NFL. You look at a game like yesterday, where you almost make it harder on yourself as a team, when you come away with a win like that. What's the messaging out of that to your team and saying, okay, then go the way we want to go, but there has to be some positive, because you're able to win in the NFL, you take away from a game like that.

Mike Vrabel (2:41)

It's going to be the same. There's going to be all the stuff that we did well that we want to continue to enhance, the stuff that we have to improve on, and then we'll just talk about the stuff that we have to eliminate. So we've tried to put it into those three buckets. Hopefully, we're filling the first bucket up with the most stuff, and then picking and choosing the places that we have to improve, and then hopefully, there's not too many things that we have to eliminate, but each and every week, that'll be different, and that's what we'll do after a win, and that's what we'll do after a loss, and then we'll have to prepare here to go on the road.

SPEAKER_5 (3:17)

What did you say to Drake on the sideline? The cameras caught you after the interception. What were you trying to say to Drake there?

Mike Vrabel (3:23)

I mean, just interactions with players, and again, this is a long game, it's a long season. We all put a lot of pressure on ourselves, and we just have to make sure that we're focused on the next play, and that's what I wanted to remind him.

SPEAKER_3 (3:39)

You know, we're not in the meetings room with you guys, so thank God. Yeah, exactly, because I can only imagine the Monday morning low lights, right? I still got PTSD from those. But when you look at the six sacks that you give up, right? We're not in there. How many of those are like, all right, Andre trying to make a play? How many of those the old line?