FOXBOROUGH — From the very first time we spoke with Mike Vrabel this week about his team’s upcoming game with the Houston Texans, you could feel an air of agitation. Not that it’s hard to detect with Vrabel. His poker face isn’t as good as he would like it to be, or maybe, when you’ve had as much success as he has, you don’t care. But Vrabel clearly was put off by all the talk about the big, bad Texans defense, and while he had no problem complimenting them, the coach already planted the seed with his own defense about the disrespect - or whatever you want to call it.
“I'm sure they're going to tell you in 30 seconds as soon as you guys go rushing out of here,” Vrabel said to close his post-game press conference. “Again, they're (Texans) really good for a reason; they've shown it each and every week. But our guys are prideful men. And they want to compete, and they want to win. And, again, they deserve the recognition that they're going to get. They're a top-five defense for a reason as well.”
So, with a little help from CJ Stroud - or a lot, depending on how you want to view the picture - Vrabel's defense, coordinated by Zak Kuhr, made life miserable for Houston. They turned the Texans over five times. Four came on interceptions of the beleaguered Stroud, including one by Marcus Jones that went for a touchdown and put the Pats in front for good (14-10). Some of the players were a little more casual, if you will, about their level of irritation with the Texans’ hype. Others had no problem sharing their true feelings.
“Definitely,” Milton Williams stated. “It fueled the whole defense. Ain't nobody been talking about our defense all year, but we'll see what they've got to say today.”
“Like they do have a great defense, but we felt like we do too, and people weren't really giving us that much notice,” linebacker Jack Gibbens told me with a big smile on his face. “And so we definitely, I think, had a chip on our shoulder tonight to kind of show thatwe can play at that level too, and that we're one of the best defenses in the league as well.”
Who can argue with the results, especially here in the playoffs? A week after the Pats made Justin Herbert look like he should be playing at Foxborough High School, they made it even worse for Stroud. He was uncomfortable from the beginning, something Pats players thought was a real possibility after a)