PATRIOTS HEAD COACH MIKE VRABEL
PRESS CONFERENCE
September 17, 2025
Q: It's been about three years since this team put together back-to-back wins. How important is it in the culture, what you're trying to build, to get some momentum with and stringing together wins?
MV: It's always important to win as many games as you possibly can. There's a lot of stats here, guys, that I'm not familiar with, nor am I concerned with. The focus is trying to build some consistency, which would then lead to confidence, and continue to build on what we did, improve the things that we have to fix and then continue to eliminate some of the things that we feel like could get you beat. So, I'm excited about doing that today, through meetings and practice, and getting them to get ready for a new opponent, just like we did last week. We cleared the deck, and we're focused on the next opponent.
Q: Mike, how is Terrell [Williams] feeling, and what do you expect from him this week in terms of his involvement?
MV: I'd say he's feeling better. I think that we'll probably be operating under the same premise. I mean, Terrell's around, I just want to try to get some continuity, and with the situation probably being fluid, we'll stick to the same plan that we had last week. He'll just be more involved. I just want to make sure that we're not in and out and in and out. That's all.
Q: Mike, any update on Christian [Gonzalez]?
MV: I would expect him to do some stuff today at practice.
Q: Mike, on Sunday, TreVeyon [Henderson] had three holding calls. Do you plan on working with him this week a little extra with technique to try to minimize that happening again?
MV: Yeah, obviously. I mean, of course. And we believe in TreVeyon's ability to protect. That's one thing that we think that he can do. I think if you asked Antonio [Gibson], Antonio would probably be as much at fault as the one on the kickoff return. I mean, I don't think you can really bounce the ball out when we're kicking somebody out by the sideline. So, that one, I'll give him a pass on. The other ones, we just have to make sure we keep our head up, stay square, be able to move our feet, not let them beat our feet and grab them. So, two is too many, so we'll just keep working on it.
Q: If Christian is doing stuff at practice today, does that leave Sunday a possibility?
MV: Sure.
Q: Mike, one of the things we have to deal with when we're talking about injuries is, we're not supposed to speculate, but everybody speculates. You as coach, you don't say how long it's going to be, media do that. When something is imagined to take a shorter time and it takes longer, and I remember Phil [Perry] talking about this, we don't talk about timelines because we don't want to overestimate or underestimate, but is it hard for a player to not have his injury understood by the public?
MV: I don't know. I guess if everybody is looking for somebody to blame --and I'm not --
I'm trying to just get them back as soon as they can get back and make sure that they're staying engaged, and then we have to decide how long that's going to be. Is there short-term IR? All these different things that come into it, but everybody wants to blame if it's not in some window that the doctor on Twitter suggests or recommends. Again, having had numerous injuries, they all recover differently. We've had players that have recovered differently, and it's like, "Well, why did one injury take this long, and is it the player not working hard to come back? Is it the trainer's fault? Is it this person's fault?" I've said this, the injury rate in a professional football league is 100%. If you play this game long enough, you are guaranteed to get injured. I don't think you can avoid that. I think it's just how you handle it and kind of go from there.
Q: It just doesn't help you guys to put it out there how long somebody is going to be out?
MV: Well, I mean, why? Because it could be shorter or it could be longer, and then when it doesn't meet the timeline, then somebody is going to come back and say, "Well, you said it was going to be two weeks." I don't know, so instead of being wrong every single time, I choose to just try not to say a timeline. If they are back in a week, then great. If it takes a couple of weeks, then there we are. That goes for everything.
Q: From a player's perspective, you're like, "Holy crap, people are starting to think it's taking too long. I wish I could tell people what's wrong with me so that they would understand."
MV: And I think that that's great, in this case, maybe, but then it's going to be the next thing and the next thing. People are going to write. You've all got pads and recorders. You're going to write whatever you want to write. They're going to think whatever they want to think. I think, to that end, where would you stop? Where would you stop?
Q: When you went back and watched the film, I'm curious on what you saw on the missed tackles.
MV: We'll have to tackle much better. We'll have to tackle [Jaylen] Warren, Jonnu [Smith], [DK] Metcalf, [Calvin] Austin [III]. So, that's the focus. That will be a critical part of this game plan. Those guys are great with the ball in their hands. They run very hard, they're skilled, they're big and present a challenge.
Q: You faced Aaron Rodgers twice when you were in Tennessee. What's the challenge of facing him? Does he still look like the same Aaron Rodgers that you saw?
MV: I think the ball can go. I mean, when you see him extend the play to the right and throw it down 60 yards or whatever that was, his operation is excellent. His ability to find relief throws in plays that he doesn't think will be positive plays, he finds relief throws. It will be a great challenge to be able to find ways to affect him.
Q: Mike, how much of what they're doing is Arthur [Smith]'s offense versus how much of this is what Aaron has sort of brought with him from Green Bay to New York and now Pittsburgh?
MV: I think Arthur's done things with multiple quarterbacks. I mean, is he doing what he did with [Desmond] Ridder where they're running zone read? No, but there's also other elements that he's done a lot of. Aaron, having played quarterback as long as he has, is going to have things that he likes. So, I'd say it's a blend.
Q: Mike, I just have one last follow-up with Christian. Some players are itching to get back, maybe even too early, based on the injury. How's his mindset been?
MV: I don't know. The locker room will be open in five minutes; you'll be able to ask him. I'm not going to speak for his mindset. I mean, if you asked me about anybody's mindset right now, I'd say you just feel free to ask them. They'll tell you exactly what their mind's thinking.
Q: Mike, with Drake [Maye], what have you learned about him when it comes to motivation? Everyone is wired differently.
MV: Do we really think that we can motivate, really? I mean, we're trying to inspire them. I think they're all motivated. They're professional athletes, and if they're motivated by championships, that's really great. If they're motivated in college because they want to date the cheerleader, even better. If they're motivated to earn a starting job – I just think that, thinking that we have to motivate them, I want to inspire them, give them confidence and trust that they can go out there and do their job.
Q: So, with the player's personality, do you have to approach each one differently?
MV: Well, yeah, we do that all the way. Whether we're teaching them, whether we're trying to inspire them, make a connection with them, I think you just have to know the audience and know who they are. Again, we've talked about having different personalities, trying to have one mindset and one mentality. So, I think he's personally motivated, and I think he's earning a lot of confidence. I think just the decisiveness, the ability to perform and seeing these things translate from the first week to the second week was really good.
Q: You guys had some more success in the ground game last week, but there were still some inconsistencies. It seemed like maybe specifically it was outside-zone stuff. I'm curious, what do you feel like you guys did better, and what can you do to improve this week with some of those issues?
MV: Well, we'll just have to handle the front, handle movement. It's never going to be great. Almost averaged 5 yards a carry. We'll try to improve on that and kind of keep the scheme multiple.
Q: We saw you give a game ball to Andy Borregales and kind of saying, "Never lost faith in you." Why was that so important to just highlight him after that game?
MV: Well, we play a lot of rookies, and that one in particular, when there's a missed combination block, other than Taylor [Kyles], I don't think anybody else is going to notice. But when you miss a kick, everybody notices. If the receiver lines up in a wrong spot, nobody notices. If an offensive lineman false starts, the entire stadium and everybody watching – so again, I just think that's a job that I wanted to recognize, him going out there, and it's a huge kick, the difference between three and six. Situations change really quick. I'm sure in his mind he's like, "Oh, we're going for it, I'm off," and then all of a sudden, we're kicking. So, to me, that's pretty cool.
Q: Mike, I'm doing a story on Zak Kuhr. To the best I can tell, when you hired him in Tennessee, all of his experience was on the offensive side of the ball. Why did you put him on defense, and why did you think he could handle that?
MV: Just because I thought his -- we talked about some of these trends from college coming, and nobody watches more defense than offensive coordinators. But he learned. He learned what we were doing. He brought other ideas and helped us bridge the gap with some of those trends that were coming from college and kind of what they were thinking. He was heavily involved, did our red zone stuff in Tennessee and really grew exponentially as a defensive football coach.
Q: Mike, you get a lead like you did in Miami, you can run whatever offense you want, but it seemed like the marriage between run and pass was really strong there. Is that something that was just, "That's best for us against the Dolphins defense," or something that speaks to an identity?
MV: It'll have to be the same thing this week. I'm going to really struggle going forward if on Wednesdays we're reviewing a game. We do that on Monday, and we've got a tough challenge. Pittsburgh has got veterans, they've got athletes, the linebackers are fast. T.J. Watt's going to be an issue, [Nick] Herbig, I have always had a lot of respect for his game, [Cameron] Hayward will push the pocket back in the middle and then you never know if Jalen Ramsey's going to be a corner, he's going to be a nickel or he's going to be a safety. So, it'll be a huge challenge.
