FOXBOROUGH - For the second time this week, Mike Vrabel stood uncomfortably in front of reporters and cameras, attempting to explain his rationale for leaving the team on the third day of the NFL Draft. It wasn’t clear, and quite frankly, I’m not sure what the Patriots’ head coach accomplished Thursday night. From this perspective, the admission that “my actions didn’t meet my standard” won’t quell the noise that surrounds him, not now, and not any time soon.
“I obviously will communicate with Eliot (Wolf) and Ryan (Cowden) and Stretch (John Streicher) or Robert (Kraft), if that's necessary,” Vrabel said of his Saturday plans. “But I don't anticipate, you know, I mean I have to do what's needed of me with my family, and so again, I'm confident that whatever they (being the Patriots) need I'm going to provide.”
In two-and-a-half weeks, this has gone from “laughable” and “absurd” to a full-blown crisis. Vrabel confessed that those words - given to the New York Post when the photos of him and Dianna Russini first emerged - were “always an attempt to protect your family. And I would never be dismissive…” However, that’s exactly what those words signaled, and now he will be absent on a day when the Patriots are scheduled to make eight draft picks.
“My family and this football team are the most important thing,” Vrabel added. “And that's what I plan to do.”
How he does it is another question entirely, and it won’t be as easy as some think. Vrabel has had to address his players and his staff multiple times on the subject. Between that, and - as I wrote - him being a little less ‘aggressively him’ as I was told by team sources, there are more eyes on Vrabel than ever before, wondering what happens next. Can the men and women at One Patriot Place, who depend on him, trust him to be what he was last year, and what they need him to be going forward?
“I just have to make them a priority,” Vrabel said when I asked if he felt he needed to re-earn the team’s trust. “That's what I have to do. I have to make my family and this football team the priority. I'm excited about giving them the best version of me possible, and being able to coach, and teach, and develop, and all those things that we talk about, that we believe in, and we know that are important.”
But this is a distraction. Vrabel even used the word himself. A self-inflicted wound, punctuated by many others from the shoddy handling of the situation. The 50-year-old couldn’t even give clarity to a simple question about whether he would miss any more team activities beyond Saturday.
“I can't answer that,” he said. “I can only say that whatever my family needs, that's what I'm going to provide.”
Yet in the next breath, Vrabel talked about what is “needed” from him in Foxborough. The two, family and football, would seem to be in direct competition with each other at this moment, and perhaps now would be the best time to focus on the former and leave the latter in the hands of his experienced staff, with former head coaches Josh McDaniels, Doug Marrone, and Thomas Brown more than capable of leading through this part of the calendar.
But as the alpha male, even one that has been beaten down in recent weeks, Vrabel isn’t willing to let go. How that plays here - and at home - will be a focus for many.
As of now, the NFL has said it will not investigate the 50-year-old, with Commissioner Roger Goodell saying Thursday evening the league does not consider it a personal conduct policy violation “as we know today. It's a personal matter, and we'll leave it at that." But that didn’t close the door on future inquiries. In the meantime, the Pats wait and wonder if the man who returns to them next week, or whenever, will be the same one who led them to a Super Bowl trip a little over two months ago. My, how quickly things have changed.