PATRIOTS HEAD COACH MIKE VRABEL
PRESS CONFERENCE
July 28, 2025
Q: When you were a rookie with the Pittsburgh Steelers, I believe in your first padded practice you may have gotten into a fight. Should I assume that you don't want your rookies doing that?
MV: I don't want any of us doing that. It was a long time ago, Karen [Guregian].
Q: Can you give a little detail?
MV: Nope. You got a follow-up?
Q: Have the players been told that they can't do it, Mike?
MV: Of course. We want to be able to practice the same way we have to play, which is physical and within the rules. Have a great play demeanor, finish through the whistle and all those things. If you throw a punch, you're going to get kicked out of the game, which is going to cost the team. So, I don't anticipate any of that. I want us to celebrate with our team and the defensive unit, celebrate with each other. Offensive unit, get excited and celebrate with each other. Not get into the taunting and the things that we can't have during the game.
Q: Did you at least win?
MV: I think I did. It's a good story about, don't use the fight, but about a veteran player. Greg Lloyd was a very dominant player, imposing figure. I got drafted in April, and he didn't say a word to me through OTAs. I'm on the defense, mind you. He didn't say a word to me the entire offseason. We go to training camp. There's a fight with me and a tight end. I'm exhausted after practice, and I see this shadow come over me as I'm sitting in the locker room. He's in his deep voice, and he's like, "yeah, the next time you want to come up underneath the face mask." And I was like, "you just now are going to talk to me?" He's like, "yeah, I just wanted to make sure you weren't like a punk, and then I would talk to you." So, it's a good example of just a veteran making sure that rookies kind of earn their stripes, I guess, a little bit.
Q: Are you satisfied with the foundation you've built in camp so far to get to the point of putting the pads on?
MV: Yeah, I think so. It'll be twofold, we'll be down in the red zone. We'll be getting a lot of work in the red zone. Things happen a lot quicker down there, tighter windows, just the speed of everything. It just gets sped up, and so that'll be good for us to move on to that situation as well as see how we start to practice in pads and our pad level, our fundamentals, our hands, and those types of things.
Q: Mike, as you share that story and talk about the guy not talking to you for a couple months while you're together, do you feel like it's different in the NFL or with this specific team now?
MV: Well, I just think that that was a Greg Lloyd type of thing. I think that was certainly his personality. I think that you're always trying to prove yourself to your teammates, especially as a young player, and Greg probably took it a little too extreme.
Q: Mike, after all these OTAs and the first four days without pads, what's your excitement level today, maybe on a scale from one to ten?
MV: I just think coming off of a day off, I think this is just another step in our program. So, I try to come out here with the same excitement and give them everything I got and help them. So, this is just another important step throughout the process of preparation.
Q: What's it been like having Terrell Williams back out there with the team, having him on defense? What have you seen from him?
MV: He has an energy to him. The players respond well to him. When he has his clips that he shows them and the things that he thinks are important as a coordinator, I think that they're believing in what we want to do and our style of play. So, just keep moving ahead, but it's great to have him back, just his personality and demeanor.
Q: Mike, if you were in our shoes, what would you think you'd say? You know, you guys should really watch this. You've been doing this for a long time…
MV: You mean if I was a part of the media? I don't think there's ever a scenario where that would happen.
Q: Oh, that's absolutely a matter of time. You already did stuff with [Michael] Felger 15 years ago.
MV: As soon as I'm done with this, I'm going to be in the witness protection program. You will never find me.
Q: Alright, well, if you decide you would help us…
MV: To me, it's critical at the line of scrimmage, right? Just being able to make contact. There's going to be a stalemate. There's two professional players lined up across from each other who can reengage, who can reset their feet, maybe get a little extra movement. How do we play? Do we stay our feet? Can we practice like this and stay our feet? We've got a bunch of guys falling on the ground. I'd rather not see that. I just don't think that good teams end up practicing that way. And again, just the urgency in which we move around practice, that we're in and out of the huddle. The players are running on and off the field. Those are all things that I think are critical, I think, that translate to the field, to the game, right? Where you're not standing ten yards behind the ball, you're coming from the sideline, and we're communicating the personnel and the quarterback has to echo that. Those are the types of things right now that we're trying to build.
Q: Mike, [DeMario] Douglas seems to be having a pretty strong camp. So, what have you seen from him and what have you learned about him this offseason?
MV: Great energy, great demeanor, very coachable. One of our offseason award winners. So, he obviously worked extremely hard, was here every day, ready to learn, ready to earn a role. I love being around Pop (DeMario Douglas). He's got great energy and he's got a lot of respect from everybody around here.
Q: Mike, specifics of one-on-one pass rush, we saw a little bit the other day. How much of that period is for experimentation with new moves or techniques versus the evaluation where guys are really obviously trying to win every rep?
MV: Yeah, I watch it a little bit. I do think that that's probably a great question. One of the players I coached in Houston, Whitney Mercilus, we went through some developmental things with him. He was a very talented player. And one thing I always respected about Whitney was his willingness to try new moves during practice. And some of them wouldn't work. Some of them you needed to see at full speed for him to say, that's not something that I'm going to commit a lot of time to. And then others that worked and that he would commit time to. So, that's exactly why you do practice, it's so you can sometimes figure out what doesn't work. And you can eliminate some things and you can move on, especially as a pass rusher. You're trying to have a couple different pitches, not too many. But I certainly need a fast ball and some off-speed pitches and some counters. So, this is why we practice, is to be able to go out there and do that. I understand a lot of those things. When you get to the team periods and you get to the games and you can see how guys pass rush. But, I think that's obviously a good thing. The offensive linemen are going to work on different techniques and things like that, so they're not doing the same thing every single snap.
Q: Mike, Hunter Henry has displayed a real level of consistency over the course of his three, four years here in New England. What is it from your standpoint that's allowed him to have that level of consistency?
MV: Yeah, he's a very comfortable player. Very similar to Kevin Byard. And you know I'm not big on comparisons, just talking about personalities. Kevin was really confident and comfortable. He never looked stressed. You would look and see some younger players maybe at the same position and they'd be sweating before the play would start. They were making checks and everything else and running. And Kevin just always had a very calm, confident demeanor and was an excellent player for us. I feel the same about Hunter. I think that he's, anything that you ask him to do, it comes very easy and he's very instinctive and he's got a good feel for the game. So, those are all positives, and I think that leads to his consistency.
Q: Mike, getting back to those one-on-one situations with the guys on the line, what are you hoping to see from Will Campbell today? What would you need to see to look back on the tape and say…?
MV: I think what would go for every one of our offensive linemen is that we're getting into the line of scrimmage when we're running it. We're staying inside out when we throw it. It's going to be the same for every offensive lineman that we have. You ask me a question about Milton Williams, I'm going to tell you the same thing for every defensive lineman. We're going to coach them all the same and continue to do what we've been doing here the first couple days.
Q: Mike, when we talk to the guys on the offense here, players and coaches, very few of them have experience in Josh McDaniels playing for him in his offense. What's that like having a whole team learning the offense and system together?
MV: It allows people to stay engaged and there's modifications that we make and we'll do that defensively and offensively, put something in and then you always have the ability to adjust it. Josh is working well and they're all working well together offensively about how we want to get things done. I think when something's new, you put a little bit more time into it just so that you can get the details and you don't maybe take things for granted. Thank you.
