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Vrabel also discussed Drake Maye, DeMario Douglas, and the upcoming NFL trade deadline. A day after the Patriots held on to defeat the Falcons 24-23, Mike Vrabel stopped in for his weekly interview with WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.” The New England head coach refuted the notion that the closeness of the score — coupled with a few Patriots mistakes — made the eventual win feel like a loss. “I don’t want to ever say that, but they’re hungry for more,” Vrabel said of his players. “They want to continue to execute for four quarters, put it all together.” Vrabel stressed an ongoing effort to achieve better consistency, with his team currently showing “glimpses” of both good and bad football. “And then there are glimpses of, ‘What’s that?'” he said, referring to the occasional poor play. “So I think they want to get back to where we’re all attuned with each other, playing together, feeding off each other, and not some of the mistakes that showed up yesterday.” Here are a few other topics Vrabel touched on during the interview: “Clapgate” Following the game on Sunday, Falcons head coach Raheem Morris accused the Patriots of having “simulated a snap” by clapping before the play. It occurred in a crucial situation in the fourth quarter with 2:09 remaining in the game and with Atlanta at the Patriots’ 48-yard line. Trailing 24-23, Falcons center Ryan Neuzil snapped the ball early, leading a frazzled (and pressured) Atlanta quarterback Michael Penix Jr. to get rid of the ball early. He was then flagged for intentional grounding, which proved to be an insurmountable hurdle in the eventual defeat. After the game, Morris said the Patriots caused the miscue. “They did a nice job. They simulated a snap,” he told reporters. “The ball came early, was snapped early. Within that snap, that was when we got the intentional grounding. Nice job by those guys. Great situational football. Great play. Got to snap the ball. That’s why the ball was snapped early on Mike. He wasn’t ready for the snap.” By NFL rules, simulating an opposing team’s snap is a 15-yard penalty for “disconcerting signals,” though it wasn’t called on Sunday. Asked if he has a response to the allegation, Vrabel seemed confused. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I mean I didn’t see anything.” “Clapgate,” he joked. “That was new. I didn’t see that,” Vrabel added. “Maybe that’s a testament to our fans. It got loud and I could hear the energy, so thank them for that. But that’s a good point. I didn’t see anything, and I’ll let you guys go investigate.” Drake Maye The Patriots’ quarterback had a roller-coaster day against the Falcons’ highly-rated pass defense. Though he threw for 259 yards — over 100 yards more than what Atlanta was yielding on average — Maye’s two turnovers led to 10 points for the opposition. Vrabel took a sympathetic line with Maye. “We have to do better job of protecting him, especially in the middle of the pocket,” he said. “We’ve talked about that since we got here.” Though he noted that Maye also has to clean up a few parts of his game, the Patriots’ coach said his message to the 23-year-old after his interception was to keep an eye on the bigger picture. “This is a long game. It’s a long season,” Vrabel said when asked what his message to Maye was. “We all put a lot of pressure on ourselves, and we just have to make sure that we’re focused on the next play. That’s what I wanted to remind him.” DeMario Douglas After posting a career day — four catches for 100 yards and a touchdown — Patriots wide receiver DeMario Douglas revealed that he was dealing with a personal tragedy: His uncle had been shot and killed on Saturday. “This whole morning, my mood was different, I couldn’t hold my tears,” Douglas told Cameron Wolfe of NFL Network after the game on Sunday. Vrabel said that after learning about the the loss that Douglas endured, he was focused on trying to provide whatever help the wide receiver might need. “Well obviously [I] was unaware of that,” Vrabel explained. “So when I became aware of that, just reached out to Pop and just said how proud I was of him to be able to do that, to carry that weight on his heart and on his mind, and said whatever we could do to support him and his family, whatever he needed, that we wanted to do that. So we’ll find out more today in how we can help him.” Regarding Douglas’ personality, the Patriots coach praised the 24-year-old’s attitude and perspective. “He is a great personality. He has a huge heart. He’s a great teammate, and he always has a smile on his face. I love coaching him, and I love being around him.” Strength of schedule Though the Patriots are now 7-2, New England has faced a comparatively easier schedule (as only three of the team’s nine opponents this season currently have winning records). Vrabel, asked about this notion, refuted it. “I can only coach one team at a time. I don’t make the schedule,” he said in response to the charge that his team has had a lighter schedule to amass its current winning streak. “Every team beats every team,” Vrabel added. “That’s my mind-boggling to me in the National Football League that there would be strength of schedule. You’ve got a salary cap. Everybody spends the same amount of money. So you guys know in this league that that doesn’t really mean anything.” Movember With the onset of November, Vrabel happily relayed that he is now in the very early stages of growing a mustache. “I’m starting off this little Movember mustache. One day in,” he said, explaining that it’s in partnership with Gillette for charity. The topic is especially relevant given the news earlier in 2025 that the team’s defensive coordinator, Terrell Williams, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. “We’re going to do the Movember thing here for men’s health, and prostate cancer. Obviously hits home here with Big T [Terrell Williams] and just making sure our coaches and everybody’s healthy is something that we’re focused on,” said Vrabel. “Each week maybe we’ll have a progress report. I’ll look like Tom Selleck here in another couple weeks.” The upcoming trade deadline The NFL trade deadline is set for Tuesday, Nov. 4 at 4 p.m. New England, currently atop the AFC East, is expected to be a buyer (though the team has already made multiple trades to send former players elsewhere). “We’ll continue to see who wants to move people, and let those guys handle that,” Vrabel noted regarding the trade deadline. “They usually come to me when something happens, something [has] potential, and then we talk about it. I’m not going to sit there and chase every angle here this morning as I try to get the coaches and everybody ready for Tampa Bay.” Does the current record change the front office’s level of aggression to make a deal? “It’s nine games in to what we’re trying to build here,” Vrabel said. “I don’t think that that’s made anything more imminent. If something that we feel like is going to help us now and in the future, then that is probably something we should look at, but I don’t think that the 7-2 record is going to have to force us to do something or not do something. If it works for the long-term, and we can build this thing…I want to be here for a long time.”
