FOXBOROUGH — Mike Vrabel addressed the media on Monday in the wake of Sunday's 35-6 blowout loss to the Jaguars, and he touched on a variety of topics, especially Drake Maye. Let's go through it:
Is he aware of an injury to Maye?
"No, I’m not," Vrabel said. "I think when you go through an NFL game like that, especially as a quarterback, and you get hit, and again, there was not, to my knowledge, anything that would have put him on the injury report or any sort of treatment. I think every player has normal maintenance and prehab that they go through as a warm-up routine. That’s not anything that I would even consider. But I know as you go through a game, I’m sure you get hit. I’m sure things will happen. But I don’t anticipate that being any issue going forward."
You made a comment on WEEI about Maye not choking the life out of every play, how do you get him to do that?
"Confidence comes from your preparation, and it comes from going out there. I can’t manufacture confidence. I can’t just say, "Hey, be confident." You have to practice. You have to hit those plays in practice, and you have to feel good about it. Taking the meeting to practice and being able to hit those things, or a pass rush move, or a game, or route, or any protection – anything that you would need in the football game.
"Sometimes you want to do something so badly. It’s like the tighter you hold the golf club, the more crooked it goes when you hit it. We just have to be able to make sure that we’re on the same page, that everybody knows what is expected of them, have a few details and then go play football."
Do you have to simplify things to get Maye settled?
"When you have games like that throughout the entire team – how do you fix some things? You get back to the basics. Again, we want to continue to impress upon the importance of what our identity is. We still have to build it. You have to put it out there. Before you can protect something, you have to build it. And we have to get back to the basics. So, some of that is, do you do less and try to do it better? Or do you go and you try to scheme up a bunch of stuff and hope you hit it? I think at the end of the day, there’s a great balance. I thought we had a couple of good scheme plays and we didn’t hit them. They made it and we didn’t. Same thing defensively – it’s how much you do. Special teams, making sure that every guy knows what their job is on kickoff return or whatever it is. So, I think to your question, you never want to go into a game when a guy is unsure, right? But how much we do, we’ll look at that, and we’ll look at everything that we can do to help us win here on the road."
Do you need to change the way you practice this week?
Yeah, I think that is a great question. I really do. And you do a lot of thinking – what’s best? I think that we believe in the way that we prepare. We believe in the schedule, and we would not be doing it if we didn’t believe in it. And at some point in time, you may have to alter things just to change it up. Paint the walls – I don’t know. See if production goes up.
"But I don’t know if there will be a ton of things that change. We’ll still have to make sure that we are ready and we’re good on first and second down, that we find ways to convert on third. And then defensively, we’ll hit red zone on Friday. But a lot of it is depending on the health of the football team, what guys are able to do and the pace in which you have to practice. Again, we have always said this, you have to be a team that can practice at different speeds and tempos throughout the year to be able to be ready for Sunday. Every day isn’t going to be 30 full-speed reps, and that’s just not possible. So again, we’ve said that, and I think we have to continue to find ways to be prepared and ready to go, while going at less than 100% every single rep throughout the week."
Stefon Diggs was a leader last season ... do you have that kind of leadership on that side of the ball this year?
"I think the better that we play, the easier it is to lead. So, we have to find players that are willing to emerge when things are not great. We don’t want front runners. We want guys that are prepared to come to work with a great attitude, that do not rely on somebody else's positivity or me trying to get guys going. Everyone is responsible for their own attitude, and I think that is really critical when you come to work, that we come with a purpose, that we are intentional, that we are here to work, but also continue to make connections. Twenty-four of the 54 guys on the game day roster are first-year players to our team, so I have to remind myself that I have to continue to coach that and explain to them the identity that we want to build and that we have to see that out there on the games. That’s the most important thing."
At the end of the first half, did you mandate that you run on the first two plays to get the Jaguars to use your timeouts?
No. Again, we are just trying to have a good plan for plays inside the 5-yard line. We weren’t trying to get cute. We would’ve been happy if we scored a touchdown on the first play. We would’ve been happy if we scored on the second play. We weren’t trying to get cute and eat up time. Those were plays that we thought we liked there down in the red zone.
Were you satisfied with the play calls?
"We have always been through this. There’s no perfect call. The best ones are the ones that players have confidence in and they’re decisive. And then we have to be able to block them and make a good read. Then, if they play the last play and they pass it off and it’s not there, then we have to throw it away.
The Jaguars went 5 for 5 in the red zone, was that your execution or Trevor Lawrence?
"I think it’s both. We didn’t play very good red zone defense. We got them in some longer yardage situations, and they made a play a couple times, and we didn’t. But also, I think we have to be much better down there. That’s what cost us last year, and I think you saw that repeatedly last year when we played good defense and then didn’t play very well in the red zone. So again, we will have to make sure that we’re emphasizing that and forcing them to kick field goals."
Why Walter Rouse over Ben Brown at right guard?
"Walt has been working there. We felt confident that was the plan going in, that Ben Brown would be the center and then the first left guard in. That’s where he had been working, and it’s good to have Ben back healthy. I’m sure he will help us; he’ll probably have to help us this week. I thought Walter had a few mistakes, but he competed and will have to improve. I’m sure Ben will be a part of that process going forward, and we will see where Greg Van Roten is here after a few more tests."
Why did you have to take a timeout after your second offensive play?
"Sometimes, when you have alerts and disguises and getting us into the right play, and I have to make a decision with the quarterback and if we are going to snap it before we get to zero. But I think that there are times where we need to be able to get up and be much more decisive and urgent. And again, we want to be precise. We can’t focus on being perfect, and if they are rotating late and we’ve already got into it, we can’t change it and try to fix it with less than five seconds on the play clock. So, I thought for the most part, we’ve done okay. But we also cannot get it down into the play clock where we are forcing ourselves to do something that we cannot realistically do, is change the play that late."
BSJ ANALYSIS