Mike Vrabel was asked on Tuesday whether Caleb Williams looked slower in his first game back from injury, against Atlanta, and whether the Patriots should prepare for a less mobile quarterback on Thursday night. The New England coach shut that down. “I’m not buying that lie. I hope the players don’t either,” Vrabel said. “He’s as fast as he needs to be. I’ll say that.”
The Patriots are 4-2 after a 26-19 win over the New York Jets on Sunday, and they visit the 4-2 Chicago Bears on Thursday, October 22, at 8:15 p.m. ET (3:15 a.m. Friday in Cairo). Vrabel spoke for about 13 minutes in Foxborough two days before kickoff.
Line injuries: Moses has a chance
Several New England offensive linemen were hurt against the Jets. Asked whether Ben Brown or Alijah Vera-Tucker would be available, Vrabel said, “Probably not.” Asked whether right tackle Morgan Moses, who was listed as limited on Monday’s estimated injury report, has a chance to play, he said, “I think he does.”
Offensive lineman Caleb Lomu may have to move around. Asked whether Lomu would get some reps inside this week, Vrabel said, “Caleb will have to be ready to go at multiple positions. So where that ends up being on Thursday, he’ll have to be ready for a couple spots.”
He also praised the backups who closed out the Jets on a long drive. “It was fun to watch those guys take advantage of the opportunity,” Vrabel said. “We would have loved to finish with a first down there at the end, but we didn’t. But to go up two scores is somewhere where we were happy to be.”
Doubs: “I’m not sure how long that’ll be”
The Patriots put receiver Romeo Doubs on injured reserve on Monday with a shoulder injury he suffered against the Jets, after his diving 42-yard touchdown catch. Vrabel would not put a date on his return. “The expectation is that he’ll work hard and get treatment, but to say I know exactly when he’ll be back, I don’t think that’s fair to anybody,” he said. “I think Rome was continuing to build confidence and ended up being a huge play in the football game, to make that play, the X play. And it’s just unfortunate. We’ll have to figure things out without him here for a little while, and I’m not sure how long that’ll be.”
With the receiver group thinned out, Vrabel was asked about tight end Hunter Henry. “He’s been a consistent presence since I’ve been here,” he said. “He’s performed and produced each and every year of his career, and quarterbacks like guys that are dependable.”
Stopping Chicago’s run game
A reporter noted that the Bears lead the league in rushing and that New England struggled against the run against the Jets. “It’d be a huge key,” Vrabel said. “They have really good talent. The O-line is excellent. They’re well coached. It’s a good scheme. I think that backs run hard, and the receivers, when you can run the football, the receivers have to be a big factor in that, and they are. They block force.”
He tied the Bears’ play-action game to that. “All play-action concepts are somewhat hard to defend based on how well somebody’s running the football,” he said. “It’s about the ability to show and sell the run and block the run, which is what they do. And then when you do that, people start to come up, and it creates opportunities for chunk plays and for overs and shots and level routes.”
Ben Johnson, Caleb Williams and Dennis Allen
Asked what makes Williams and Bears coach Ben Johnson work, Vrabel pointed to sacks and a quick release. “When you look at the amount of sacks that he’s taken and the ball’s coming out quick, and they use motion, I think that helps him figure out where he wants to go with the football,” he said. “I think a running game is a quarterback’s, and especially a young quarterback’s, best friend. They do that well.” He called Williams’ decision-making “decisive,” both when the ball comes out quickly and when “he’s extending, he’s spinning, breaking tackles or being able to escape out of the pocket.”
On the other side of the ball, Vrabel said Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen changes his plan from week to week. “It looked like there was some different things each week that maybe you thought were going to repeat that maybe didn’t necessarily repeat, which is a testament obviously to coaching, but also to the players,” he said. “Dennis is an excellent football coach, but third down is something where he’s probably made his mark.” On why Chicago is good on third down, he said the Bears win on first and second down, “they disguise well, they blitz,” and their off-the-ball players “contribute heavily, I think, to the pressure.”
Safety Kevin Byard III played for the Bears last season, and Vrabel said he can help, up to a point. “Personnel-wise, he may be able to share with us some things that he thinks or things that he saw, but you have to just be careful,” Vrabel said. “They just do a lot, and we’ll have to be prepared for multiple things. He’s not going to know when they’re going to be in a Wildcat.”
The short week
Asked about the mental side of a Thursday road game, Vrabel described the routine. “Come in after the game and treat it like a Wednesday and then get rolling,” he said, “and try to explain to the players the best that we can that by Thursday night they’ll feel better physically. And so you can’t let how you feel physically affect your mental preparation.” Asked about Drake Maye’s decision-making in the Jets film, he kept it short: “Hope he makes great decisions Thursday night. That’s the most important thing.”
He praised linebacker Christian Elliss, who went from special-teamer to every-down starter. “He cares deeply about the team. He’s a great teammate,” Vrabel said. “He’s like a lot of guys, somebody that you would notice if he wasn’t here.” On undrafted players such as Charles Woods and Efton Chism III, he said, “It doesn’t really matter what you do before you got here. It just matters what you do when you get here.”
Asked whether all the injuries have made it hard to know what kind of team he has, Vrabel said “some of the moving parts” make it “tough to tell what we have or what we don’t have.” He finished with the line the Patriots used for the video: “I know we have a resilient group, guys that care deeply about each other and that at times can play good football and not beat themselves.”
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