Vrabel wouldn't discuss Drake Maye on Sunday. On Monday he said the quarterback panics
The Patriots coach told the Globe's Ben Volin 'you're not going to ruin my Sunday,' then came back the next morning with a detailed answer about Maye's decisions and the offensive line.
The Sunday non-answer
The bottom line: Asked about his concern level with Maye and the offense, Vrabel declined to engage, then cut off the next reporter before the question landed.
Volin’s question, at the postgame press conference: “Thirteen points a week after just scoring 10, just what’s your concern level with Drake Maye and the offense right now? Are you worried he’s maybe pressing a little too much?”
Vrabel’s answer: “Nope, just trying to win the game, Ben. You’re not going to ruin my Sunday, but I’ll come back to you tomorrow. Thanks, bud.”
When another reporter began a question about Maye, Vrabel interrupted: “You neither. You’re not going to ruin it, either.”
It was not only Maye questions. Asked by Andrew Callahan about Christian Gonzalez shadowing DK Metcalf, Vrabel said “I don’t recall,” then added that he did recall and was not going to say. He also disputed a characterization of Romeo Doubs’ Week 1 game: “Rome dropped one ball last week in the first game,” rejecting the suggestion it was three.
How it was received: Yahoo Sports’ Megan Armstrong called it “a strange reaction from Vrabel, considering nothing about Volin’s question or tone was inflammatory in the slightest,” and described his delivery as “monotone, perturbed, and borderline condescending.” Volin posted a shrug emoji on X.
What he said on Monday
The bottom line: Vrabel did come back to it, on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” and again at Gillette Stadium, where the team published a full transcript. The answers were detailed rather than defensive.
On Maye’s decision-making, to WEEI: “Certainly the decisions, I think that we all put pressure on ourselves to be great, and I think that that’s what really good players want to try to do. I just think you have to find the fine balance of reading things out — being able to kind of somewhat predict — have the timing to make the decisions to throw the ball downfield. I thought for the most part it was pretty good yesterday.” He added: “I think there were some things that Drake could obviously do better. There are some things that a lot of guys could do better offensively.”
On the interception, asked whether the ball was tipped: “I don’t think so. Again, I didn’t slow it down. When the linebacker drops that deep, we should probably just get it down to Reggie [Gilliam]. I think he realizes that and knows that. Those are the decisions that the quarterback makes. Those are the decisions that Drake makes. Again, if they get us — they’re that far off in coverage and he panics that far, then we have to go somewhere else with the ball.”
On Maye leaving a clean pocket: “I think that there’s a balance. I think you have to be able to keep your eyes down the field. I think you have to be able to slide, move in the pocket and transfer, and I think it also comes down to blocking better more consistently, so that there’s a confidence, a trust and that everybody knows that the other guy is doing his job to make the play work.” He added that when Maye reads man coverage and thinks he can run, “then go and be aggressive. He did that a few times yesterday.”
On the idea that Maye looks less confident than last season, Vrabel disputed it, pointing to long completions to Eli Raridon and Doubs. “Everybody’s going to nitpick,” he said. “I’m just telling you, there [were] good things in there, and there are things that we have to fix.”
One caveat he offered himself: “I don’t think this was one of the best offenses we’ll face all year, so I try to keep things in perspective and go from there.”
Maye was harder on himself than his coach was
The bottom line: Where Vrabel declined the question on Sunday, Maye volunteered the criticism.
“Yeah, definitely not where we want to be,” Maye said. “[We did] little things that just hurt ourselves, and it’s going to end up coming back to bite us. So it already bit us once last week.”
“You got to be excited and enjoy the win,” he said. “But at the same time, you realize that playing like this isn’t going to end up with offensively us leading our team to wins. … It starts with me.”
On the interception, thrown 33 yards from the end zone: “I just got to give him a chance farther with the linebacker kind of panicking back, but at the same time, I can get it underneath and keep the drive going. … Got to know that that’s not always the time to take a shot on first down.”
The numbers behind the question
The bottom line: New England’s offense has scored 13 points and 10 points in two games, and Maye has thrown four interceptions against one touchdown.
- Maye went 14 of 22 for 208 yards with no touchdown and an interception, was sacked three times, had four passes batted and rushed four times for 17 yards, per Yahoo Sports. The offense produced 327 net yards a week after 285.
- The one offensive touchdown was TreVeyon Henderson’s 39-yard run, which Maye credited to a downfield block from DeMario Douglas: “Pop made a huge block, and you just see the extra effort when it works.”
- Maye’s best throw came escaping the pocket to his right with 2:12 left in the third quarter: 47 yards in the air to Doubs, who ran another 16 for a 63-yard gain.
- He threw eight interceptions in 17 regular-season games last season, when he was the MVP runner-up. He has thrown eight in the four playoff games and two regular-season games since.
- New England is without A.J. Brown, on injured reserve with a high ankle sprain, and lost right guard Mike Onwenu late in the first quarter Sunday. Vrabel said Monday he “wouldn’t anticipate him being out there here in the next few weeks.” Yahoo noted some of Maye’s sacks reflected a lack of open receivers downfield.
Up next: Jacksonville, then Buffalo. Both won their openers, and both made the playoffs last season. See the updated Patriots depth chart for how the line is stacked without Onwenu.
Our take
The question was fair and Vrabel knew it. Thirteen points after 10 is a reasonable thing to ask a head coach about. He declined that question, in that tone, after a 20-3 win, and then answered it in full the next morning. The sequence is the tell.
Credit him for the Sunday version anyway. A coach who litigates his quarterback at the postgame podium is a coach who has lost the room, and Vrabel was plainly answering the questioner as much as the question.
Then read Monday. He said Maye “panics” when a linebacker drops deep. He said the line has to block “better, more consistently.” Those aren’t the words of a man who thinks this is pure noise.
The thing is, Maye isn’t broken. He escaped the pocket and dropped one 47 yards downfield to Doubs. He ran four times when the coverage asked him to. Vrabel’s right that the long balls to Raridon and Doubs are in there. What’s missing is everything in between: four passes batted, three sacks, an underthrow to Hunter Henry that a zone linebacker had time to undercut, and an offense that has managed 13 points and 10.
Fix the finishing, stop the underthrows, and this is a good team with a quarterback having a slow September. Keep scoring 13 points against the opponents Vrabel himself calls the weaker ones, and Jacksonville and Buffalo are going to feast on the Pats.