There have been a lot of questions and focus on how Patriots coach Mike Vrabel has flipped the culture around the team in one season.
One area that he’s emphasized: respect.
Vrabel urges his players to respect support staff around the team.
“We talk about the amount of time that we’re around each other,” Vrabel said. “I would hope that they would have respect for the people in our building, the people that help them do their job. … I’m lucky to coach ’em. We all have our moments. We all have our moments of frustration. We all have our moments of being upset. That’s fine. It’s just making sure that we don’t take those out on the people around the building. We always talk about that.”
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye said one of the lessons the players got in training camp was to not leave towels laying on the floor after showering.
“In one of the first meetings, he said, ‘You leave rags in the showers for the equipment guys to come in here. Pick up after yourself.’ He’s not going to wash the rags, and I don’t blame him,” Maye said. “Something a little like that. It’s probably a little bit TMI, but little things like that. Picking up after yourself, knowing that somebody else has to pick up after you.
“Even here with the security, I know a lot of us probably have short tempers and saying, ‘Hey, we play on the team, why do we need a badge around here?’ But in one of the first meetings, he said, ‘Hey, we should have no problems with showing our badges. Everybody’s got to do it.’ Just little things like that that go a long way of treating other people right, and Coach Vrabel is the best at it. Just giving people credit in the facility that do extra work, trying to give a $100 here, $100 there that Coach Vrabel always says it works out in the long run and it’s bigger for them and how much they do for us.”
Man about McCown
Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold and his New England counterpart, Maye, have a common bond in Josh McCown.
McCown was a veteran quarterback on the Jets when Darnold was drafted in 2018 and served as an invaluable mentor for him in his rookie season.
McCown, too, coached Maye in bigh school when he served as an assistant coach at Myers Park High School in Charlotte, N.C, where he trained Maye in 2018 and 2019. McCown mentored Maye during his high school career, reviewing game film with him.
“Josh is a special person,’’ Darnold said. “He had a great year in 2017 with the Jets [18 TD passes to 9 INTs and nearly 3,000 yards passing] and for him to see me come in as a rookie, he could have seen himself as the starter and the dude for that team to have another great year in 2018.
“But he understood his role [as the backup] and he was a huge inspiration for me just to do my job every single day. He taught me so many things about football, about life, seeing him as a father and a husband.
“I can’t speak highly enough about what Josh has meant to me, still to this day. He’s a truly special human being.’’
In an interesting twist, McCown was Darnold’s quarterback coach last season with the Vikings and remains in Minnesota.
A long road
Darnold’s only full year as an NFL backup came in 2023 when he was Brock Purdy’s No. 2 in San Francisco, an experience he called invaluable to his development.
“San Francisco was a great experience for me, something I think was crucial to me growing as a player,’’ Darnold said.
Looking back on his rocky three seasons with the Jets, Darnold said, “I don’t think this would be possible without the bumps I kind of went through early in my career.’’
