Best Quotes From Mike Vrabel’s Introduction As Patriots Coach

FOXBORO, Mass. — Mike Vrabel was in command.

The New England Patriots head coach answered more than a dozen questions from the media during his introductory press conference at Gillette Stadium on Monday. In doing so, Vrabel shared his vision of the culture he wants to implement, along with what he’ll be looking for from players on the football field.

We compiled more than a dozen of his best quotes, including those from his opening statement and responses to questions. They were both valuable and telling into the mind of New England’s head coach.

New England’s in Vrabel’s soul
“I want to thank the teams that were willing to meet with me through this process to give me an opportunity to potentially lead their team, but in the end, it was clear to me and to my family and my soul that this was the place that I wanted to be, and I thank Robert, and I thank the Kraft family.”

One word that pertains to everything
“I want to galvanize our football team. I want to galvanize this building. I want to galvanize our fans.”

Culture-setter
“One thing I realized about culture is you can find out what your culture looks like when your family, your business, or your team is at its low point. It’s not when you’re winning Super Bowls…. But that culture is going to be built on winning, a competitive spirit throughout our roster and throughout our players and throughout our coaches and our staff and the ability to put the team first and care about somebody other than yourself.”

Removing the entitlement
We’re going to earn the right to be here every day. We’re going to move entitlement from our football team. We’re going to get everything that we’ve earned from the head coach to the position coaches, all the way down to the players. We’re going to earn the right to be here every single day.”

You get what you put in
“… We want to treat every player the same way they treat the team, and we want to treat every employee the same way they treat the team. If they care about the team and they come here with a great attitude and a willingness to work and help the team, I’ve asked Robert to do everything that we can for them, to support them and their families. That’s the type of environment that I want to build.”

Vrabel’s ‘vision’ of players
“We’re going to ask our players to just do a few things. One is to put the team first, to know what to do and play fast and aggressive. That’s the vision for the type of player. … Those are the things we’re going to ask the players to do — put the team first, know what to do, and play fast and aggressive and play with some speed.”

Looking forward to collaboration
“I think the most important thing is there’s a shared organizational vision for what we want to do and how we want to work and how we want to acquire players. … I’m just excited to sit down with Eliot and his staff. I’ve met more with Eliot over the weekend than I have — I’ve had conversations with him, but I need to sit down with his staff and figure out where we’re at, what we need to do. I’m confident that those types of decisions are all going to sort themselves out.”

Coaching staff not solidified, but desired traits are
“I will tell you this, as long as I’m the head coach here, our coaches will have three simple jobs — and they sound simple, and they’re probably not as simple as we want to make them be. They want to teach, they want to develop, and they want to inspire our players by making a connection.”

Working with Drake Maye
“Drake is going to be his own person, but I’m going to give him some things that I feel like are necessary to help us win football games.”

What the banners represent
The banners that hang in our stadium, they’re not going to help us win, but I think it’s a great reminder of what it takes to win and the type of people that you have to have in the organization, the selflessness, the work and the sacrifice that you have to make.”

Draft, past doesn’t matter
“Everybody got here and will get here through a different avenue. Maybe we drafted them. Maybe we signed them as a free agent. Maybe we will sign them as a free agent. But none of that will matter. None of that will matter how we got here. The only thing that’s going to matter is what we do when we’re here, and that’s the most important thing that I can tell them is that everybody in my eyes is starting over and they will prove to us and to this team the impact that they’ll make.”

Clear thought on roster upgrades
Certainly, you look at the teams that are able to protect the quarterback and dictate the flow of the game offensively, making sure that up front we’re sound, we’re strong, whether that’s through free agency or the draft, that’s something that’s critical.”

‘Interesting’ response to topic of Bill Belichick
So I think there’s also things I’m going to try to explain to the players, there’s things that are interesting and there’s things that are important. I think me having played for Bill is interesting, I just don’t know if it’s important to helping our players.”

Attractive aspects of job
“I think the ability to have open dialogue with Robert and Jonathan was something that was critical, Eliot and his staff, obviously what I believe and what everybody else believes is a young, dynamic quarterback. We have some youth on the roster. We have some veteran players who have kind of seen both sides of it and understand, and that will help me and will help our players get back to that success and understand how hard it is.”

A few ‘nonnegotiables’
“People ask what non-negotiables are. Our effort and our finish is going to be the contract that we make with our teammates. That will be my job to make sure.”