FOXBOROUGH — A little over a year ago, Mike Vrabel stepped to the podium inside one of the Gillette Stadium’s fancy pavilions and stated that he was “unsure” if the Patriots were “good enough to take advantage of bad football.”
Though the season ended in painful fashion Sunday night in Santa Clara, Vrabel knows that after 17 wins and a trip to the Super Bowl, his team has at the very least answered that question.
“Every time you guys ask me about my expectations, I say I try not to have any so that I’m not disappointed. But I would say that they, now that we’re done, probably exceeded expectations,” Vrabel said Tuesday at Gillette. “The biggest thing, I think, is that we learned how to win. I think you have to learn how to win in this league. You have to understand sometimes they’re pretty, sometimes they’re not. Sometimes you have to come from behind. Sometimes you have to make a stop late defensively. Sometimes you have to make a kick. Sometimes they’re easier games when things are going right and you return punts for touchdowns and defensive touchdowns and everybody’s having a big pizza party.
“So we learned how to win in different ways. I think that’s important in this league.”
As for the 29-13 loss to Seattle on the grandest stage in sports, Vrabel said he has some regrets, but no more than usual after any loss.
“Well, I mean, I think that’s the same case in every game. I wish we would have blocked this guy, I wish they would have moved, I wish we would have called a different coverage for what they did, I wish, I wish, I wish,” Vrabel said. “But it doesn’t go that way. None of us did enough to put ourselves in a position to win the game.”
Specifically, Vrabel noted that the Patriots’ defense had a number of chances to sack quarterback Sam Darnold but couldn’t get him down, thus keeping New England from making game-changing types of plays on that side of the ball.
On the other side, Vrabel interrupted a question about rookie Will Campbell to declare that there is no internal belief that the left tackle needs to change positions.
“We’re not moving Will to guard or center or tight end or anywhere else,” Vrabel said definitively.
Vrabel added that the extra scrutiny on Campbell is part of the job.
“When you sign up to play left tackle, when you sign up to play corner, you sign up to play quarterback, you sign up to be the head coach, you get judged, you get scrutinized,” Vrabel said flatly. “He’s 22 years old. He’ll get better, he’ll get stronger. There were moments where he played well, moments where he blocked a guy. There’s plays he’d like to have back.”
In what is somewhat of a rarity in this current era of the NFL for a team that makes the Super Bowl, Vrabel doesn’t seem to have to worry about losing any assistant coaches to other jobs. He does, however, have to resolve what the top of his defensive coaching staff looks like, as defensive coordinator Terrell Williams has been cleared to return to work after being declared cancer-free. Inside linebackers coach Zak Kuhr called the defense in Williams’ absence this season, with New England finishing fourth in points allowed and eighth in yards allowed. The defense allowed 8.7 points per game in the three playoff wins leading up to the Super Bowl.
“Yeah, there will be a lot of things that we’ll have to work through there,” Vrabel said of how the team will proceed at defensive coordinator. “T’s healthy and been given a release to be back and be back at work. So again, I will work through all those things here in the next couple days, weeks, however long those decisions may take.”
While outsiders may have frequently used the term “ahead of schedule” to describe the Patriots’ unexpected 14-win season and run to a Super Bowl, Vrabel instead used the analogy of building a house, noting that this season served as the pouring of a foundation.
“I just talked about a disappointing finish to a phenomenal, exciting, enjoyable year,” Vrabel said of his final message to the team. “It’s unfortunate. Talked to them about the foundation I think that we’ve built, much like a home. You know, you build a home and then run out of things to do, and so you continue to add on to it. You finish the basement, make additions to it. And we’ll try to do that to this football team. I like the foundation of it, and we’ll try to improve on it.”
