PATRIOTS HEAD COACH MIKE VRABEL
PRESS CONFERENCE
August 22, 2025
MV: I guess it is close to good afternoon. I appreciate you guys that made the trip or stayed last night and being here this morning. First, before we start, Eliot [Wolf] and I spoke with the following players this morning and told them our intentions to make a transaction to get down here closer to our number. We spoke with R.J. Moten, Micah Bernard, Phil Lutz, Kyle Peko, Cole Fotheringham, Shane Watts, Philip Blidi, Ben Woolridge, Jordan Polk, Monty Rice, Sidy Sow, Jaheim Bell, Isaiah Bolden and Tyrese Robinson, so tough day. Again, we've talked about this, try to have a personal side to this and a professional side. And this is clearly the professional side of what we have to do. 31 other teams are going to do the same thing between now and Tuesday. So again, just try to do it as respectfully as possible, and continue to function.
Q: Obviously, you have started the process already, but between now and Tuesday, do you think you'll still make sort of gradual decisions, or just wait until the deadline on Tuesday?
MV: You know, we'll still practice, and so we'll have to have guys to practice, and we'll try to make those decisions when they become evident, and we're still having conversations on players, and a vision and ideas and things that we want to do and where we want to get to. So, I think the next 10 days will be very fluid. As you guys all know, covering this league, there will be players that will come onto our roster, maybe from other teams, maybe there won't. We'll have to get down to 53 and then eventually a practice squad and the mix of practice squad players, of veterans and young players that may develop, or ones that you know we could activate. So, I can't tell you for sure when those will happen, but obviously that has to be done before four o'clock on Tuesday.
Q: You mentioned a couple of tight ends in that group. I'm curious about the number three spot, behind [Austin] Hooper and [Hunter] Henry, a couple guys who are good pass catchers. Do you want a true blocking tight end there? Or is it any sort of skillset?
MV: Well, there's a lot that goes into when you start looking at third tight ends, fourth and fifth corners, backup linebackers, there's got to be an element of special teams that also goes into that. You know, some versatility just to say, "Hey, we're looking for specifically this," I think we're just looking for the right fit, and somebody that you know can serve a lot of roles throughout the game and throughout the week.
Q: Speaking of special teams, Javon Baker looked like he made some contributions there. In your opinion, I don't know how new that is to him, the special teams thing. Is he good enough in that regard to have a spot on a roster, just based on special teams?
MV: Well, I think you look at the entire body of work, and I think you try to evaluate everything, not just the special teams, but what else can they do? And in Javon's case, he's a wide receiver, and I think the more that he does the special teams, I think the better that he's gotten, and he'll understand how he can use his play strength, his speed, some of the receiving tools and fundamentals as a gunner, potentially. You know, we tried to get him some reps at corner yesterday on a punt return. He's played on the kickoff for us. And you know, those are new, especially for a young player who's played receiver most of his life. So, I think that the more that he's done it, the more comfortable that he's gotten and we'll continue to evaluate him.
Q: How would you assess the depth at quarterback?
MV: Other than just saying that now we have two. I'm not sure how much other assessment – you know we're there at two, and we'll decide about who is, or if we plan on carrying a third quarterback on the 53 or on the practice squad. So, the only thing I can tell you is, as of now, we have two.
Q: One other thing from last night, the basic spot rule. When you had Jaxson Dart scramble, we're scrambling in the press box trying to figure out why they spotted the ball. We had never seen it before…
MV: Yeah, you know, those are specifics that come up in training camp and being on top of that and understanding how that works is an interesting perspective, and the officials explained it pretty quickly. So those are unique.
Q: Have you seen it before?
MV: I don't think in a game that I was a part of.
Q: I wanted to clarify something that you actually said right at halftime when you were walking off…
MV: You watched that?
Q: I did. Yeah, pretty good performance on the move there for you.
MV: I started to stray off to the left, thinking like, how do I – I don't want to knock her [Kaylee Hartung] over, because obviously I'm three times the size of her. But then I was like, I felt like I was straying off, and there was too much distance. So, you know, we just kind of came up with that on the fly. But go ahead.
Q: You said something about Drake [Maye] and how you're continuing to work with him, his development as a leader. And then you said something, I think it was you're hoping for him to have some attention getting moments?
MV: No, I think, we talked about his leadership of whatever your personality is, right? As a quarterback, you have to, when you talk to the players on that team or on the offense specifically, you have to do it in a manner that gets their attention and to clarify that. That's always what I've said, not asking you to talk like I do, or anybody else, but the way that you talk to the players on the field, you have to do it in a manner that gets their attention that, "Hey, I need you here. I need you to do this. This is what we have to do." and that was my reference.
Q: I'm doing a story on play sheets and how coaches use play sheets, draw up play sheets and etc. I'm curious for a head coach who doesn't call plays on either side of the ball, do you want somebody nearby that has like an offensive and defensive play sheet to quickly…
MV: I have it on either side. I have all our game plan on either side, and then I have my situations and two-minute and four-minute and everything else.
Q: Are you a guy that likes to handwrite notes throughout the game or before the game?
MV: I think probably before the game. Just thoughts on what we may do, put the officials' names on there if I don't know all seven of them, or comments that come up or things that we've called or things that look good. Kind of make notes on there. But I have both game plans on my sheet.
Q: What are your thoughts on the screen defense in recent weeks, and also, what specifically on the long touchdown last night, maybe, could guys have done better on?
MV: Screen defense is, again, about recognizing, one, that they're kind of letting you go, right? So, they invite the end up inside, the tackle usually oversets when we're talking about running back screens. Being in man coverage, if you have to go and hug, and if you're in zone coverage, now we've got to have eyes and we have to go and break and trigger and avoid, usually linemen, in space. And the defensive linemen are really – you want to be a good screen defense, you have to have linemen that recognize quickly that they're letting them – letting you go inside and then they put their foot in the ground and they're chasing to the back hip of that offensive lineman, right? Where the backs usually try to cut back in, and we want to chase at the back hip and be able to impact that play.
So, I think it starts there. Whether it's in zone coverage, now it's, "Hey, am I leveraging this football to a corner? Am I leveraging it to a safety?" And last night, on the long one, it was zone, and the big thing for us is when a defensive lineman goes in a gap, stay in that gap so that the second level and the third level can play off of you. If you're a linebacker and you're going to make it, you're going to trigger, whether that be on a block or perimeter play, trigger and then the safeties and the corners in the third level can play off of you. What I saw on the replay and in the film was a second-level player kind of lied to the safety and then went outside, and the safety thought he was going to be outside, and then he cut back and we didn't have a good enough retrace from the inside. We've had pretty, I would say, good screen defense through training camp. Minnesota hit a couple on second-and-long in the game, and then obviously the one last night that that got out.
So, that's what screen defense is about. If you're in man coverage, we've got to go hug and get on them before the lineman can get to the second level. But really, the best way to defend a screen is to get the defensive linemen to recognize it and go chase and put their foot in the ground because they're not accounting for them, right? They're not necessarily accounting for them. They're hoping that they keep they keep rushing the quarterback and the quarterback drifts and throws a hand grenade over him. So, that's the quick dissertation on the screen pass. I'd also be curious to see if in the last couple of years, the perimeter screens, right, have gone down, their effectiveness and the amount in which people call them, because you can't cut, right? Linemen – that's a timing play when you're trying to get a tackle out to the to the nickel, right? And now – in the past, they used to be able to just run and throw at them and it would time up. Now that you can't cut, I just – we run them, people run them, they have them, I just haven't seen those be great plays like they were because the linemen can't go out there and cut. So, we have to know, even on those running back screens, how do we stick and avoid a big player when we know that he can't cut? Because those used to always be cut opportunities for the offensive linemen.
So, just, since we're talking about screens – you've got your halfback screens and you've got your perimeter slip-screens.
Q: Mike, you've got a couple of veterans on this team who haven't been out there a lot this summer for injury-related reasons in Jahlani Tavai and Kendrick Bourne. Guys like that, do you feel that you have enough information about them, projecting how they can fit into what you do, or do you need to see them out there on the field to evaluate whether or not you have space for them?
MV: I think you're always trying to gather information on players and how they fit in the vision that you have for the football team. They've missed some time, that's no secret, but I think that they both worked extremely hard to stay engaged and to understand what it is that we're doing. Even going all the way back to Ja'Lynn Polk, when Ja'Lynn had missed some time early on in camp, we said that the biggest thing was that he stay engaged and be ready and not waste the days when he got back because he wasn't staying sharp mentally, and he did that and then unfortunately got injured in a game. So again, that's all we would ask of any player, is that they're ready to go mentally when they get back, and I know that both of those players will be. So, they're working hard to get back and join us when they can.
Q: For Jahlani, is he, for your defense, Terrell [Williams]'s defense, is he viewed as more of an off-the-ball linebacker or an edge guy? We've seen him play both.
MV: Yeah, there's versatility to his game. I think, always, since he's been in this League, he's been able to – he's a football player. He's a defensive football player. He's instinctive, he's got good size, plays with his hands, can play multiple positions in the kicking game and just has to just get back and hopefully try to be evaluated here sooner rather than later.
