FOXBORO — Six months ago at his introductory press conference, Mike Vrabel memorably assessed his new team by saying he wasn’t sure the Patriots were even good enough to exploit bad football.
On Tuesday, the eve of training camp, it was time to follow up.
Are they good enough now?
“Well, we’re closer than where we were in March or April when we got here,” Vrabel told a reporter at the start of a minute-long answer that offered a peek into his team meetings and mindset as head coach.
Barely a minute later, another reporter encroached on the same territory by asking if Vrabel could tell whether Patriots players had returned from their five-week break in good shape.
Vrabel glared.
“I mean, whether you were in a coma when I answered (the earlier) question, typing on your phone or tweeting, I don’t know,” he panned, “but I spent five minutes answering that question. I can go back through it, but I’d rather not.”
And there it was, packed into a little soundbite: the Mike Vrabel Experience.
This is who he is.
Thoughtful. Occasionally caustic. And ever in command, even when tempted to lose his cool.
Because here was the rest of Vrabel’s answer to the second question: “(Players) did pretty good on the linear run test, which they practiced; they knew what it was going to be. The big thing will come when they’re in line contact,” he said. “You’re sitting there, you’re wrestling with a guy (in practice), and then the D-lineman’s rushing, he almost gets to the quarterback, but we’re telling (the D-lineman) to plant, run and go sprint to the football, and then go do it again.”
He continued: “Or, we’re asking (wide receiver) Kyle Williams to go run a post, and he didn’t get the ball, but he wanted to get the ball, but he didn’t. Can he run back, get set and know what to do the next play? That’s really where we’ll see. So, I’ll be able to answer that question, again, hopefully only once, in a few days.”
In the meantime, outsiders continue to wade into the Mike Vrabel Experience, re-familiarizing themselves with the man they once knew as a player and are learning again as a head coach — self included.
In time, I have no doubt Vrabel will dunk on me at a press conference for whatever reason. It’s coming. The same inevitability will reach players in team meetings; just as Bill Belichick once did to Vrabel and every other player he ever coached for most of this century.
Except unlike Belichick, whose unrelenting lowlight sessions eventually drove Tom Brady away, Vrabel is mindful of balancing the good with the bad and the ugly to keep players engaged while he rebuilds the program.
“We talk about the good, the bad, and the s— that gets you beat,” he said, “and I think that (players) can tell the difference between those three now. … So, those are the three buckets of film that we show them, and I can’t always just sit there and show them the stuff that gets you beat because that gets old as a player. You’re like, ‘I can’t just see this all the time.’
“I can’t just show them all the good stuff because — so, I just try to — every time there’s film, I try to show them those three buckets.”
Of all the changes Vrabel has swept through Foxboro the last six months, special teams ace Brenden Schooler defined the Experience by noting the hard lines he’s drawn.
“It’s not that you’re not scared, but you know he’s not messing around,” Schooler said. “Like, if you’re not on your P’s and Q’s, you’re not doing exactly what you’re asked to do, how you’re supposed to do it, I don’t think guys are gonna be sticking around long.”
But then Schooler, who spent his first two seasons under Belichick and last year playing through whatever the Jerod Mayo Experience was, paused, emphasized his initial point and balanced it by noting another side of his head coach.
“There’s also the excitement that he brings, and the energy that he brings. Because being a former player, he knows the difficulties that we have to go through. And so to have him at the helm, I think it’s going to be beneficial for us.”
Of course, that sentiment was once expressed about Mayo, and proved to be misplaced. Mayo’s playing days couldn’t save his program from a lack of accountability that surfaced almost immediately when he stopped enforcing punishments for penalties in training camp.
Yet before they’ve stepped on the field, players like Schooler already know that won’t happen this summer.
Because after months of introductions and roster deconstruction and reconstruction, meetings and plans and installation and OTAs and non-padded minicamp practices, real football is coming. And so is the Mike Vrabel Experience for all to see.
“We all need accountability,” Hunter Henry said Tuesday, “and he brings that every day.”
