New England Patriots
Vrabel had a blunt reply when asked about the team’s general performance in Sunday’s loss.
Despite his team committing five turnovers in a 21-14 loss against the Steelers on Sunday, Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel maintained that he wasn’t frustrated by the outcome of the Week 3 matchup.
“It’s never frustrating to coach it. It’s frustrating to watch it,” Vrabel said during his weekly Monday morning interview on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.”
“You’re in the moment. You’re trying to keep everybody together. You’re trying to get some stops. You’re trying to focus on the situation,” he explained.
Still, Vrabel let slip his displeasure with the general performance when asked if he took heart from his team’s perseverance despite the repeated mistakes.
“We can polish the turd however we want to,” Vrabel replied, “and just understand that you’ve got a five-percent chance to win that game where you have that many turnovers. The average margin of victory in those instances is probably 18 points, and to think that we still had a chance. So there’s a lot of good stuff in there. There’s stuff that [was] very detrimental. Obviously we have to correct it, and we have to be able to move on.”
Here are a few other topics the Patriots’ head coach addressed during the interview:
Responding to Rhamondre Stevenson’s fumbles
Four of New England’s five turnovers came via fumbles, with half of those mistakes being committed by Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson.
Vrabel, queried about the ongoing struggles the 27-year-old has had with ball security — he led all NFL running backs with seven fumbles in 2024 — tried to take a collective approach.
“It starts with him, but it also starts with protecting the guy with the ball,” he said. “So we’ll have to do a better job of that. If you look at the second guy coming in, or somebody else is making a play or not finishing. Certainly it’s easy to look at the guy with the ball, and that has to be where it starts, and our technique. But it’s got to be put on everybody else to make sure that they’re protecting the guy with the ball.
“We have to protect him from the guy that he can’t see and be able to block,” Vrabel said of preventing future fumbles.
Later in the interview, the question was expanded to the “running back room” in general, including Antonio Gibson and TreVeyon Henderson. Gibson also fumbled, while Henderson averaged just 2.5 yards per carry (and has dealt with issues in pass protection).
“[They] have to take care of the football, and when we have a guy to protect, we have to be able to go and block [for] them. But we’ve also seen a lot of big plays from that room too,” Vrabel responded. “So it goes hand-in-hand. When you lose, it sucks, and we don’t realize that they made some big plays. When you win, we’ll tell everybody about the big plays.
“My job is to focus on both of those — the good, the bad, the stuff that gets you beat,” the Patriots’ coach continued. “You know that the turnovers are going to get you beat, and missed blocks have to get fixed, and then remind them of all the good stuff, breaking tackles, catching the ball, and getting [big] plays, and returning kickoffs for 100 yards, and all that other stuff.”
Play-calling at the end of the half
After marching 92 yards downfield at the end of the second quarter, the Patriots failed to collect any points from a seven-minute drive after Drake Maye threw a red zone interception.
Looking back at one of the more difficult moments from Sunday, does Vrabel regret the play-calling in that moment? Specifically, does he think it was a mistake to call three straight pass plays?
“Well, there were some called alerts, and I think just getting into a play that gives us the best chance,” he said. “They loaded us up pretty good, and Drake…had an alert to run if we had a favorable look.
“I didn’t hate the calls,” Vrabel added. “Again, certainly the execution has to be better. Knowing what we’re going to get down there from them. Having a good idea, just as the same way as they came back and blitzed us on the other fumble. So you want to make sure that you have bodies in there, that you have pieces in there, that if they one-up you, and they go with a defense that brings blitz-zero, that you have options. And again, we didn’t execute down there. So we’ll have to stay sound and try predict what they’re going to do, and give everybody options just like we did last week. We got the look that we wanted, and we were able to plow it in there. This week we weren’t able to score.”
Thoughts on DeMario Douglas and the failed fourth down
The decisive play of the game occurred on 4th and 1 with 1:07 remaining in the fourth quarter at the Steelers’ 28-yard line. Maye threw a quick pass to DeMario Douglas.
While Douglas avoided the initial tackle, it came at the expense of crucial yardage, as he jumped backward. Unfortunately for New England, the shifty wideout was tackled short of the first down line, resulting in a game-ending turnover.
Vrabel was asked about coaching Douglas following the moment.
“We’ve talked all along about knifing, about knowing where the sticks are,” Vrabel said, referencing wide receivers using their agility to reach the first down line. “We had a couple examples, especially last week. We had some examples yesterday. You probably just have to knife and get what you need and know where you’re at, and be able to get to the sticks.”
Looking at the closeness of the call, Vrabel noted that games are decided by tight margins.
“We’re close. We probably just needed to get another revolution,” he said of advancing the ball forward, “and then if we stop, we have to be able to knife. We have to be able to get the yardage that we need.”
What he said to Julian Edelman
Before he left, Vrabel was also asked about the Patriots’ Hall of Fame ceremony on Saturday to induct former head coach Bill Parcells and retired wide receiver Julian Edelman.
“That was really well done, both of those guys,” Vrabel said.
He joked about telling Edelman to keep his speech short prior to being honored at halftime on Sunday (something which the legendary Patriots wideout referenced).
“I told Jules before the game — I saw him as I was walking out — I said, ‘Remember, halftime’s only 13 minutes, OK?’” Vrabel said.
He ended on a humorous note. When WEEI co-host Jermaine Wiggins acknowledged that he might have given a longer speech, Vrabel — a onetime New England teammate of Wiggins — jokingly referenced that the East Boston native would not be getting inducted into the Patriots’ Hall of Fame.
“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about his speech.”
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