Listen, Latest England media, Mike Vrabel’s first training camp as Patriots coach is now in session.
One Boston reporter learned that lesson the hard way Tuesday once they received a scolding from the Patriots’ Super Bowl-winning linebacker-turned-head coach at a press conference after posing the same query that Vrabel had already answered about how players utilized their time away from the power.
“I mean, whether you were in a coma after I answered Tom’s [Curran] query, typing in your phone or tweeting, I don’t know, but I spent five minutes answering that query. I can return through it, but I’d somewhat not,” Vrabel said.
The Boston Globe’s Ben Volin was on the receiving end of the Vrabel call-out and flagged himself for a “total lack of focus.”
As Tuesday’s press conference continued, Vrabel provided further context on the players’ conditioning and expressed hope that he wouldn’t need to repeat himself down the road.
“We won’t know — we did pretty good on the linear run test, which they practiced; they knew what it was going to be. The massive thing will come once they’re in line contact. You’re sitting there, you’re wrestling with a man, after which the D-lineman’s rushing, he almost gets to the quarterback, but we’re telling him to plant, run and go sprint to the football, after which go do it again. Or, we’re asking Kyle Williams to go run a post, and he didn’t get the ball, but he desired to get the ball, but he didn’t. Can he run back, get set and know what to do the following play? That’s really where we’ll see. So, I’ll give you the option to reply that query, again, hopefully just once, in a couple of days,” he said.
Vrabel, 49, is tasked with restoring the Patriots to their glory days following a string of dreadful seasons under his former coach, Bill Belichick, and fellow Latest England alum Jerod Mayo, who was fired in January after an embarrassing 4-13 campaign.
He spent the 2024 season as a training and personnel consultant with the Browns after being fired by the Titans in January of that 12 months following six seasons on the helm.
A winning culture is on the forefront of Vrabel’s game plan entering training camp.
“I need to proceed to show, develop and make connections with our guys. Through that, preparing them to win, and the situations, getting them to know that there’s other ways to win a football game. There’s plenty of ways to lose them, but we wish to concentrate on the ways in which we’re going to win, and sometimes that’s going to be different every week with whatever that plan to win is every week. I actually have to try to try this. I actually have to get our coaches to try this and get our players to know that,” he said.
The Patriots open the season at home against the Raiders on Sept. 7.
