Patriots HC Mike Vrabel Transcript 11/24
PATRIOTS HEAD COACH MIKE VRABEL
PRESS CONFERENCE
November 24, 2025
Q: I heard you say on the radio that Will [Campbell] will probably miss multiple games. We saw Vederian [Lowe] on the left on Sunday and Marcus Bryant on the right. Do you expect to continue to use Vederian? Would you also consider Marcus? How do you think you’ll navigate that?
MV: I don’t know if I would have an accurate answer for you right now. Just where we’re at, we’ll probably go through the week of practice. I thought Vederian had a couple good plays. And, again, he hasn’t had to go in there for us, but I think everybody just has to be ready for their opportunity, and I thought he was for the most part. Some things we’ll have to continue to work on and clean up, but right now it’s probably a little too soon to figure out what the lineup’s going to look like.
Q: I don’t know if he’s had a chance to undergo any testing or anything, but is there anything more you can tell us about Will’s injury this morning?
MV: No. I mean, he won’t be out there this week. It’s going to be a couple weeks. We’ll have to make a decision here on the roster to see how long that will be and go from there. But it’s nothing that’s going to, hopefully, put him out for the entire season.
Q: How about Jared [Wilson]?
MV: Probably too soon to tell. We’ll see how the week of practice goes or see how the rehab goes and see how he responds there.
Q: After yesterday’s game, you said something along the lines of – paraphrasing here – about how the team, both the players and the coaching staff, need to recover faster from things that don’t go your way in-game. For coaches, and mainly for yourself individually, what does that look like?
MV: Well, just setting the temperature. I mean, I have to set the temperature for what we do and make sure that everybody is – that we understand [that] things change quickly and that everybody has to be on the on the ready. We go through different lineup changes and personnel groups are up, personnel groups are down. Field goal protection has got moving parts. Using 15 guys on a field goal protection throughout the course of the game, that normally doesn’t happen. And then just understand that if we give up an interception, and again, how we come back and respond. We had a scoring drive. Defense kept us in there. Special teams gave us some opportunities. We had a good return there at the end of the game when we needed it. Able to get points. It wasn’t a touchdown drive, but it was a huge drive that took some time and then allowed Andy [Borregales] to kick a field goal to make it a touchdown game. I think that you can all see that when we’ve gotten into those situations when they’ve needed a touchdown at the end of the game, as opposed to a field goal, that we’ve been able to get the drive stopped. However pretty or not pretty it is, whether it’s in Miami or that game yesterday, six points and three points is a big difference.
Q: Referencing something else you said last night, does being undefeated on the road fall into the category of records and numbers don’t mean “bleep,” or does that tell you anything about your team?
MV: Again, I think that they found a way to win. I’m proud of them and there’s a lot more that we can do. And then we can play better, we can play with better details. But, in the end, they found a way to win and it’s not easy to do in the league that we’re in. So, we’ll have to kind of keep that fine balance of understanding that wins are important, but improving at this time of the year is what’s most important.
Q: What did you see from Ben [Brown] when he subbed in for Jared?
MV: He was ready to go, but had a few plays. I mean, again, they all do. Everybody does. I thought he was ready to go. I thought he was into it. Ben gives us great effort, and he was prepared for the opportunity.
Q: I was curious about your reaction to Shane [Bowen]’s firing as well.
MV: Well, Shane’s a close friend. We started in this business together at Ohio State. Shane’s a good football coach. This business is – again, things happen. They make decisions. So, I’ll support Shane the best that I can, and his family, but then also focus on everything that we have here. So, that’s kind of how this thing goes.
Q: Mike, how’s Terrell [Williams] doing?
MV: I’d say he’s continuing to improve from a health standpoint. Again, it’s a process in the treatment, but I would say that he did everything that he could to get himself ready for the treatment, for the chemo, and so, therefore, I think that he’s responded well. It’s good to see him continuing to have good weeks, and then come in and see us when he feels up to it, which he has.
Q: Mike, it seems obvious when, if the receiver’s missing, how a quarterback would have to adjust based on a replacement’s speed, height, whatever. When an offensive lineman’s missing, what do quarterbacks have to be aware of that maybe we don’t see or people that haven’t been in the trench like that – how do they change with different offensive linemen with them?
MV: Well, just making sure that the communication is good, that everybody’s on the same page and then – are there matchups that you need to help, assuming that there’s a player that’s not a starter that then goes in there. And again, are there matchups that you have to be aware of, and be able to allocate resources for protection and things like that.
Q: Mike, I’m sure there are a lot of details that go into some of those goal line plays that you guys had offensively. I’m curious if there was anything more that maybe Drake [Maye] could have done in those moments.
MV: There was more that I think we all could have done. You get into, the ball’s on the inside of the 5-yard line, and you have to figure out if you’re going to go big people and big personnel. We were out of that. Then you get into some other personnels, and you either have to – you can’t block them all or you’ve got to read somebody and make decisions down there. And so, it just seemed like whether we were really close yesterday, whether that’s pushing TreVeyon [Henderson] in or Hunter [Henry] scoring. We had the cross and Mack [Hollins] kind of gets ping-ponged into the guy, and I don’t think he was trying to pick him; that’s not what we teach, but that’s what they saw. And it’s going to get called, I’m not saying that it’s not. But you have to be at your best down there. They are. They’re blitzing. They’re going to try to put some pressure on you and make you make some tough decisions. And so, we all have to be better down there, whether we’re in the goal line personnel or we’re in 11-personnel.
Q: How did you feel the offense responded in some of the blitz situations like the sack? Was there anything that maybe you could have avoided on that one with Hunter coming out of the slot?
MV: Yeah, probably – I mean, again, the way that the protection was, you just have to get rid of it, dirt it and put it at the guy’s feet. But I think at that point in time, with where the protection went and what he felt like, getting five guys out, that we probably should have just got rid of the ball. But we didn’t make one mistake into another. We took a sack, and we were able to get some yards on the next play and kick a field goal. So, there’s going to be things like that that happen in the game. Hopefully we can learn from them.
Q: Mike, can we add Khyiris [Tonga] in the same question? Any update on him? He was so disappointed. He felt like he let his guys down, not being able to finish there.
MV: Tonga’s never going to let anybody down as long as he’s here. These guys want to go, and I have to look at them, I’ve got to figure out if they can, if they can protect themselves, they can do their job and not make it any worse. He clearly, from what I saw, wasn’t going to be able to do most of those things. And so, we’ll just see how he progresses through the week.
Q: Obviously want to respect the privacy of the situation, but do you have an update on Jahlani [Tavai]?
MV: I don’t. I think that you can see that the players in this team and everybody associated with it, the organization, care deeply about him. But respect to his privacy, and so we’ll leave it at that.
Q: Adding to the list, do you have an update on [Brenden] Schooler?
MV: No update there, other than we have a busy training staff this morning.
Q: Mike, the defense has hung their hat on being able to turn teams one-dimensional and stop the run. Last couple weeks there’s been maybe some cracks in that. What did you notice in particular yesterday, and is it – I don’t want to say an easy fix – but do you feel like a couple things here, a couple things there?
MV: Yeah, I mean, you’ve just got to build a wall, set edges and not let easy yardage off the edge on the first play. Again, it’s about building a wall, setting the edge and swarm tackling. They pushed a couple piles on us, or they had a couple runs in there. Just have to make sure that we’re not giving them the easy ones and we’re making them earn everything that they get. Sometimes we didn’t do that, and sometimes when we trigger and we build a wall, no gain.
Q: When you have a week like this with the holiday and more family distractions, especially for the younger guys, how much do you have to emphasize locking in and staying on the details?
MV: I think that that’s a good point. That’ll be something that’ll be new for us. Now, we get the extra day to do that, but I think that that’s a good reminder that we’ll have to have for those guys about being here for work, and then when we’re not here, then having family or whatever it is that they have going on. But I think that makes it a little easier with the extra day so that we don’t have to do anything that’s modified to be able to give them that day off. So, we’ll let them have Thanksgiving off, we’ll come back in, Friday will be a Thursday and we’ll go from there.
Q: Coach, will the team’s momentum and confidence help the team with these injuries? What kind of role do you think that will play?
MV: I don’t think it’ll play much. I think we’ll have to build the momentum back up this week with the way that we practice, the way we prepare. The confidence that we gain in practice is really critical. There’s a new challenge, new opponent. We’ll have to make the corrections, and we can carry some things over from the game that we felt like we did well, but it’s each and every week in this league that you’ll have to go out there and be ready. They got off to a good start yesterday against Detroit, scored a bunch of points, gained a bunch of yards, so we’ll have to get to work on the Giants quickly.
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