FOXBOROUGH - This NFL trade deadline was never going to be a Rams-esque "eff the picks" feeding frenzy for the Patriots. Mike Vrabel had set the expectations for weeks, and while doing nothing wasn't the desired outcome, the Patriots were never going to budge on their assigned value for a player.
We can debate how close they were to making something happen. I can tell you the Pats were in on Jaelen Phillips before he got traded Monday to Philadelphia for a third-round pick. Edge rusher Arden Key or Dre'Mont Jones (he went to Baltimore) may have been on the team's radar, but as I wrote here on Monday, league sources believed Titans ownership wasn't all that interested in helping Vabel. The Jets were reportedly reluctant to make deals within the division. So, when 4 PM rolled around on Tuesday, the roster they have is the one they will move forward with.
"Well, first I would say that deals are like being pregnant," Vrabel told us Wednesday afternoon. "You either are or you aren't. There's no like, it's either a deal or it's not, so I don't know how close you can be.
"I know that everyone worked hard, that we investigated and looked in and made phone calls, and (that's) what personnel departments do. And in the end, we decided that this was what we were going to do..."
There's obviously a strong argument to be made that not adding, even if it was simply to elevate the overall depth of the roster, was short-sighted. Last week, the Pats dealt two reserves, guys who got meaningful - if not consistently average - snaps in Kyle Dugger and Keion White, for future late-round picks. It wasn't as if they had players pressing those two for playing time, so it seemed logical that reinforcements were coming, especially on the edge. Instead, Vrabel has charged his defensive staff to move forward with Anfernee Jennings and Elijah Ponder as their top backups and/or consider elevating Bradyn Swinson from the practice squad. None has shown they can help an ailing pass rush.
The Patriots have never wavered from taking the long view of this build, and Vrabel will occasionally slip in a comment about this being the first year of the process. It makes sense. This organization is still an offseason away from having the kind of roster it wants. Yet, at 7-2 and with the AFC unsettled, was there ever a thought of being more aggressive?
"I never really looked at it that way. I think we're trying to build a program, the same thing that we said when we got here," Vrabel said, adding that doing so requires "finding ways to win and building a team and figuring out where the pieces are that we can continue to add when it makes sense. I don't think this is a negative. This is just where we're at."
Again, a measured response by the head coach, but all it took was one more question, which started innocuously enough, to get that growing mustache of Vrabel's to curl.
Q: "You've been really clear about your, you know, the long-term vision for the program is what's most important here..."
"Winning is the most important thing. Don't put words in my mouth. Winning is the most important thing. Keep going," Vrabel snapped, later adding, "For us to sit here and think that anything is wide open and talk about playoffs - like we're focusing on our 10th game in a row, that's what we're focused on. How do we get prepared on Wednesday? How do we get our bodies back? How do we get mentally prepared, physically prepared, to go on the road to a place that is hard to play, and that's where our focus is. It's not trying to predict the future, saying, ' Well, it's wide open.' It's - we're just going to keep focusing on what's in front of us."
Of course, Vrabel doesn't really think we forgot about when he slipped and mentioned the playoffs several weeks back, or when his quarterback did the same? At this point, it would take some catastrophic injury/injuries for the Pats not to be playing meaningful football in January. So while Vrabel's public approach and attempts to steer these conversations in the direction that he wants - Tampa Bay this weekend, obviously - his team has an opportunity to do something more than they expected (especially after those joint practices with Minnesota in August). That's a great thing for this franchise, but it's also fair to wonder if - by not messing with the margins - the Pats may regret that decision in a couple of months with a playoff game on the line.