PATRIOTS HEAD COACH MIKE VRABEL
PRESS CONFERENCE
July 23, 2025
Q: Yesterday, Hunter Henry talked about a get-together that Drake [Maye] organized, getting all the players together in North Carolina, how beneficial that was on several levels. Do you look at something like that in Drake in his second year as a sign, perhaps, of his growth and development?
MV: I think that there's a lot of things that go into that. I think that's part of it. Being able to organize it. He did, I would say, 95% of it on his own. To be able to plan the travel, the housing, the location, and everything that they were going to do and the places that they were going to do it. So, I think that that's a large step not to deal with other things in the off-season, in the summer. Getting married and everything like that. So, it was important to him. I think that was something that he wanted to do. It was something that he approached me with early on. Something that he was thinking about.
Q: Can you talk about the importance of the five weeks leading up to training camp and the end of minicamp?
MV: Well, again, if you want to talk about the conditioning, I'm happy to revisit it. I thought we went into great detail yesterday. But maybe not. We're all on this honeymoon stage right now. It's all fun. You don't have to apologize. It was great.
Q: How much fun is this for you, Mike? You were here as a player, training camp. A big-time player. What does this mean to you to be here as the head coach of the Patriots?
MV: I think we're grateful. I think we're excited. There's an energy in the building. The players seemed excited. We had a long meeting. That first training camp meeting is brutal. It is long. There's a lot of presentations that we have to get in front of them. They stayed engaged and then came in here this morning. I'm excited to hit the field with them, and our coaches are ready to work and continue to build what we started out in the offseason.
Q: Mike, along those same lines, you've been a first-year coach before. What's the importance of your first training camp in your first year as a head coach?
MV: However long you've done it, you're going to have things that come up. I think it's just about being flexible. It's about being able to adapt and adjust quickly and change the schedule based on the health of the team, or maybe just trying to have a good sense of where the team is, and what they need, and how much meeting time and how the schedule works. We put a lot of time into the schedule to make sure that it's efficient and give the players exactly what they need to come out here, and again, continue to build a team, earn a role, and ultimately, we have to prepare to win.
Q: Mike, I'm sure you had a structure the last time you were head coach in terms of how to run training camp. Basically, for this year, for you, is it the same kind of structure or do you change for the kind of players that you perceive that you have this time around?
MV: There's things that you need to get done and there's a checklist that you go through, and it relates to the fundamentals, the scheme, the special teams, conditioning, game situations, red zone, third down, two-minute. But the fundamentals are critical. The fundamentals in this game are a foundation, so the foundation has to be built here in training camp. We'll adjust and add time in the way that we take care of the football, the attention to detail and the ability to turn the football over. Everything that I think that we need to work on, we have to be able to address at some point in time during training camp.
Q: Obviously today, Mike, with the acclimation period, no pads on yet, but as a head coach, what do you look for in day one to help you evaluate the team, where the guys are at, and beyond what they've done the last five weeks but starting today, moving forward?
MV: Well, nothing that's changed when we hit the grass in OTAs. It's just about the urgency in which we move around practice, that there's an organization to it, that there's a flow to practice, the operation, the substitution. We're working with 91 guys, maybe 87 of them will be out there today, that there's communication, substitution is good, the flow of practice, and again, just the efficiency in which we work.
Q: Mike, going back to team meeting in the morning, what are some of the things you have to go through that makes it, as you said, kind of brutal?
MV: We can get our MRIs, we can get a lot of our lab work right here at Patriot Place, and the one thing that Jim Whalen, our trainer, told us, told me at that dinner, because I was like, there's a lot, I wasn't expecting there to be this many people, and he said that there is one, we have one specialist per every three players. And whether that's an orthopedic, or whether that's a cardiologist, a neurologist, anybody that would have orthopedic contact with our players, we have a large group, and we're thankful they take care of us here at Patriot Place and Brigham and Women's, to be able to get in an MRI and get back and be efficient so the players can be back in meetings. All these different things, the concussion, making sure that presentation is presented, so there's an extensive medical equipment, wearing the proper equipment and understanding what that is about seeing these young guys and their feet. We covered the hotel, we covered security, we covered media, for you guys, there's a media presentation. There's a film that the league puts out, and so Stacey [James] and I talked to them about that, and so there's a long checklist.
Q: Given the trust that you have to have with the medical staff, Jim's experience and your own experience and relationship with him as long as he has been here, how valuable is that?
MV: Well, the trainer I worked with in Tennessee was a mentor for Jim as well, so Todd Torricelli, Jim has worked with him, so when I left here, we still all stayed in contact because I was working with Todd in Tennessee, and Todd talked to Jim a lot, but there is a lot of comfort there, there's a lot of experience on Jim's part. So, we're just trying to give the players the best care that we can, as quickly as we can, to give each guy what they need. So, that's been good. And again, we always talk about, some of these injuries are going to be unavoidable. It's just how we work from them, and how we come back from them is what's most important.
Q: Mike, there's a moment in a video that the team produced, the "Forged in Foxborough" show, I guess you'd call it, where the team is sort of in between plays.
MV: What did you call it? I didn't call it anything. What is it? Is it a docuseries or…?
Q: I don't know if you call it a docuseries or, that's probably a more apt term for it, and I'm the media guy, so nice job by you. The offense is sort of in between plays, and you say something to Drake like, hey, you've got a minute here, talk to your guys. Why is that important to you? How naturally does that come to Drake to do things like that, and how much of a focus will that be for you as head coach to kind of draw that out of him?
MV: My job is to figure out what we need and what each player needs and do everything that I can to help them physically, or mentally, or emotionally. And I try to recreate these practices the same way the game is. The offense goes over there, we have a drive that lasts one play, three plays, eight plays, twelve plays. It ends in six points, three points, whatever it ends in, or a punt. And you go over there, and you have to talk to the coordinator, you've got to talk to Josh [McDaniels], but then the quarterback's going to have to go up and down and make sure, hey, we just had this happen on this last play, if get it again, I saw this defense for the first time. There's a lot of things, because it's always going to mean more coming from the guy that's out there leading them. And that's all that situation was, no different than defensively, you're going to go over there, the linebackers and safeties are going to talk, say, hey, when they make this check, or they're in this formation, we're going to have to make sure that we adjust to it quickly, or if we get this same, chances are, if they had success with it, we're going to see it again.
Q: Milton Williams told us a story about you pushing him in a conditioning drill, how has he responded to that, and what have you seen from him from a leadership and conditioning standpoint?
MV: Early on, that was something that was important to know, was that he wanted to lead, and there has been zero pushback, he's fun to coach, he's very mature, and so there's zero reservation about his leadership ability. He's here a lot, he's here all the time, he shows up early, gets plenty of work in, he takes care of his body, he's a true pro.
Q: At the end of the day, what would be a successful training camp for your team by the end of the summer?
MV: Well, if we can remember what the objectives of training camp were, which were, do you remember? No? Build a team, remember Mike [Reiss]? Earn a role. Remember the last one? Prepare to win. You guys are on fire today. We're off to a great start. So, if we can do those things, there's a reason I try to do this, I don't claim to be the smartest person, so if I can just try to find some things that I think are important for the team, and the individual, and then kind of coming back to the team. So, if it looks like we build a team, and there's some cohesion, and guys are enjoying being around each other. Are they competing? Are they taking care of each other? And then are guys starting to figure out, hey, this is going to be my role, I'm going to go try to dominate that, whatever that may be. And then ultimately, are we understanding these situations, and can we try to win a football game? So, that's what would be successful.
Q: What do you look for in leadership, Mike? What do you want from your leaders, but also your captains?
MV: I hope player and coach can be an extension of the message that I have created, and try to get that across in their own words, and stay consistent to it. That's why we don't have a ton of stuff that we try to talk about. We try to stay very consistent, and allow that to kind of branch off, and don't tell them what to say, but allow them to have some parameters and things that we're working for. So, we just hope that everybody carries that message over here, as they work to lead their unit or another position. Thank you.
