HEAD COACH MIKE VRABEL

PRESS CONFERENCE
September 30, 2026

Q: Mike, do you have a feel yet for how this team will deal with adversity, or is that something that's still going to be played out?

MV: If it's worth anything, I think you have to be willing to go through some difficult times. Again, you put everything you have into each week, whether you're on the road or you're at home. If you lose, you have to quickly try to get back to neutral and then figure out who you have available the next week. So, adversity comes during the week, it comes during the game, it's going to always be in front of us. I don't think we can eliminate it. It's like distractions – there's things that you just have to be able to handle. Again, preparing and improving are the biggest things.

Q: Two open roster spots. Are those filled as of now?

MV: Nope. Those are not filled. Again, we had some moving parts. Unfortunately, some guys went on injury reserve. But no, nothing yet with the roster. We did just sign one player to the practice squad though.

Q: Marcus Bryant, any chance you would start him back up?

MV: That would be next week, right? The rules I think are after the fourth week. [Brenden] Schooler was a little different because he never started on the active list. So, I think that was something that was new this year: if you didn't start on the active list, then you could come back after two weeks. You still can't play after four games.

Q: What about Harold Landry [III], since he would be eligible for that as well?

MV: Correct. Not yet. Harold continues to work hard to try to get back. I think we'll just have to be smart about when we start his window and then what that looks like. But not yet.

Q: Greg Hill said this morning that he had heard that there was an issue between you and Drake Maye. Are there any issues between you and Drake?

MV: He heard from who? Unnamed sources? Let me just tell you why I'm here. I'm here because Drake was the quarterback. Believe it or not, I had choices as to where I wanted to coach. I wanted to coach here because Drake was the quarterback. So, I don't have really much other to add to that about a comment from an unnamed source. But I'll just tell you what I've told numerous people if they want to ask me why I'm here.

Q: What do you do to help him this week, Mike?

MV: Well, the same thing I've been doing: just trying to coach the football team, trying to coach him. I'm not going to coach him the X's and O's. I mean, I can show him the defense and say, "Hey, this is what these guys may like to try to do." But it's just about the urgency that we have, how we operate and how we get in and out of the huddle and the command of the huddle. The quarterback is a conduit to Josh [McDaniels] and the play caller. I firmly believe that the way that they tell the players that they're playing with, like, "Hey, this is what we're going to do. This play is going to work not because it's some great scheme, it's going to work because we're going to execute it, or we're going to make it work." And you get them to believe that whatever he calls is going to be successful. Now, will every one be? No, that's not how it goes. But that's what I try to teach them each and every day.

Q: That being said, is there anything schematically that you want to see either more of or less of?

MV: More points, less negative plays. Again, I've been in this a long time; this is about players and not plays. That means that there's no magic formula, right? It's about execution, it's about playing with great speed, with great aggressiveness, being decisive. I showed them the play from the first game. The Steelers opened the game against the Bengals with a 30-yard play. Did you happen to see it? It was a great play call. They checked it down to [Jaylen] Warren for 4 yards, and DK [Metcalf] and [Pat] Freiermuth turned and knocked the crap out of the guys that were on him, and Warren ran for 30 yards. So yeah, it's a great scheme. It's just about identity and then continuing to practice that. But whether we run it, we have to be able to move the line of scrimmage. We have to be able to take care of the guys, run through some arm tackles. But we're really excited about the practice preparation. Huge challenge, just like it was and will be every single time we play Buffalo and Josh [Allen]. So, that's where our focus is.

Q: Where do you think that the pass catchers, the receivers and the tight ends could improve as you're watching, particularly from the last game, to help support the offense and make life easier for Drake?

MV: Everybody can improve. Starting with me, my messaging, the way that I coach the football team. Everybody has a job. Their job is to get open, catch the ball and then when they don't have it, transition to help protect the guy who does have the football. So, that's going to stay the same. Win 1-on-1 matchups, be where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there, and the quarterback's got a job to throw to the guy that's open as soon as he can and create that timing.

Q: With [Joe] Brady taking over as their head coach, moving from offensive coordinator to head coach, have you seen any sort of changes in their overall offensive philosophy or is there a lot of continuity?

MV: Nope. They're really successful in a lot of things they do. They rarely punt, five punts in three games. Josh does a fantastic job of being able to extend plays. The linemen do a fantastic job of understanding the scheme that they want to run and creating lanes for [James] Cook, who again, once he gets cooking – no pun intended, but they're just tough to stop, right? Because then it's play action, it's boots. And so, it just makes it tough to stop. [Dalton] Kincaid has been fantastic lately, averaging almost 19 yards a catch. The quarterback's tough to bring down. But I think the line is a very underrated part of what they do. It's been a very consistent unit, one that knows how to block for not only the running back, but also for the quarterback.

Q: With Greg Van Roten out, will you start with Walter Rouse as the right guard?

MV: Walter and Ben [Brown] will work in there today and tomorrow, and we'll kind of see where that goes for the week.

Q: Is there any consideration to potentially moving Alijah Vera-Tucker over to the right side of the line and playing with Morgan [Moses]?

MV: Again, the vision that I have for AVT and Will [Campbell], you're starting to see a little bit of that. And I want to continue that, so probably not right now.

Q: Mike, you can learn a lot about people and players by how they deal with adversity. What have you observed about how Drake is dealing with this adversity, which might be unprecedented in his athletic career?

MV: I try to tell him this story that, whatever your religious beliefs are, this is just a story that somebody told me that I liked. It was that when in this particular case, God wanted David to be a king. He didn't hand him a crown, right? He gave him a fight. So, you've got to go through a fight. He gave him Goliath. That was just a little story that was said. If we want to get where we need to get to, we're going to have to go through bumps along the way. This is all a part of the journey. When we talked about preparing for the journey, the journey wasn't always going to be 10 wins in a row, road warriors and everything else. It comes, sometimes, with turnovers, you give up touchdowns, you miss a field goal, and sometimes that's what the journey looks like.

Q: Mike, I know there are obviously evergreen things that win football games: takeaways, X-plays. Do you see a formula coming together for this team specifically in how you guys can best operate?

MV: Yeah, I mean, I think the formula has got to be able to have efficient quarterback play and affect their quarterback. You know what I mean? How what our rating is and what their rating is, is a big determining factor in which we always try to adhere to and be very efficient. We have to affect their quarterback. Their quarterback can't have a 110 rating, throw 2 touchdowns and 70% completion. That's going to be a tough day. Then obviously the turnovers. We have to put ourselves in a position to understand where the game is and the level of risk that we take, and understand how critical the football is to all of us. Defensively, when you get your opportunities, you can't have missed opportunities for big plays. Just looking back, the quarterback throws it to Marcus [Jones] at the end of the half, that could have been another way to make up something. Those are opportunities. You miss sacks, those are ball disruption opportunities to knock it out of the quarterback's hand or being able to take care of the football, conversely. But that's kind of the formula. You've got to be able to run it enough to create some successful play passes. Certainly, what we did wasn't good enough and hasn't been consistent enough.

Q: When it comes to the defensive interior, it seems like pressures and run stuffs are kind of low this season relative to the talent in that room –

MV: Yeah, we need more. Those guys know that, they understand that. We have to have more impact. Again, we want to be able to create a new line of scrimmage. We want to be disruptive. We also have to have a responsibility to the defense to make sure that we're where we need to be. I know that those guys are going to work extremely hard, starting today, moving forward. Again, we're not chasing plays; we're chasing wins. Terrell [Williams] has always said since I met him in 2018, "You can make the play without making the tackle." And that means that those guys are doing their job. They're creating a new line of scrimmage, keeping the guys behind them free, making the runner cut back, maybe before they want to. A lot of different ways to be able to affect the game without necessarily getting a statistic.

Q: Mike, do you think players can be in a slump, performance-wise, or it's more of an execution issue?

MV: I'm not really sure. You try to prepare each and every week. I know baseball players can be in a slump; you can go 0-for-40. We have three hours once a week to go perform. So, we know when it's going to be, and we have to be at our best when it's required. That's Thursday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday, whenever they want us to play.

Q: Mike, whether it's their general adjustments with Josh making checks or Josh escaping, what do you see as their most common answers to blitz pressure under Joe?

MV: Throw a screen, throw a mesh, let the quarterback take off and make a play. Pump the guy like he did in Cincinnati. Pump the free rusher, run and go win the game. I don't think that play's in the playbook.

Q: Mike, Kevin Byard [III] was on a show and he talked about you having a meeting on Monday, talking about accountability with the players. How important is that in your mind?

MV: Well, we just want to be the answer. We don't want to be the issue. We want to be the answer. We want to be the reason why we get this thing back to 2-2. This is critical to go on the road, within the division. So, this is a great opportunity for us to be the answer, to understand that we choose our demeanor, we choose our attitude, we choose our response. That's not up to anybody else.

Q: Mike, last year you were also inconsistent at the beginning of the year, but last year in Buffalo became your turning point of the season. So, what can you learn from last year's experience that can help you to have a good game this Sunday and hopefully turn things around for this year?

MV: Take care of the football. We did a decent job stopping the run. We got turnovers. We executed in critical situations, like the one at the end of the game to go down there. And we made a big kick on special teams.

Q: You said earlier this week that you guys still need to build your identity; it has to be built before you can protect it. What do you want this year's team's identity to be?

MV: The same one as it always is. Playing full tilt to the tackle, finishing longer than the guy with the ball, protecting the guy with the ball, taking care of the football. Having a defense that hunts the football, that goes and looks for every opportunity they can to get their hand on the football. One that plays with technique and fundamentals, understands what the details of the play are and makes great split-second decisions on the football field. Do I block the guy in the back? Do I cut inside? Do I stay in bounds in five-minute? Do I reach the ball and get it knocked out of my arm? All these little things that come up in split-second game operation.