On Sunday, the Patriots did what few Patriots teams prior have been able to do, as they went down to Miami and beat the Dolphins in a thrilling 33-27 ballgame.
Sunday’s win for New England was only the 17th win in franchise history down in South Beach, a place they’ve been traveling annually to play a game since 1966.
Winning in that heat is no easy feat, and the Patriots were able to do so despite committing a game-high 12 penalties for a loss of 75 yards (Miami wasn’t much better, flagged 10 times for a loss of 65 yards).
That number was up from Week 1, as head coach Mike Vrabel’s team was flagged eight times for 70 yards in a 20-13 loss to the Raiders.
More yellow week-over-week typically means a sloppier performance, regardless of the game’s final outcome. And with that added yellow, it typically gives coaches some nice low-hanging fruit to use as a coaching point, both with their team and with the media.
But when Vrabel was asked about the flag-fest on Monday’s edition of The Greg Hill Show, he had a surprisingly different spin on turnover margin in general.
“We don't want penalties, but I've gone down this road before,” said Vrabel. “Penalties are probably a bad predictor for win rate. I'd focus on quarterback rating, turnovers and rushing margin, and we won all three of those.
“I would say that the easy thing to say is - because I lived this world when I was first starting in Tennessee - I was the ‘Penalty Nazi.’ And then I did a lot of research, and I'm like, ‘Unfortunately, it looks like it's 50/50.’ Like, whoever has more penalties [wins or loses]. You know, there's critical penalties. And we want to make great decisions, and we don't ever want to do things that cost the team. And we'll address those.”
In the extremely short sample size we have through two weeks of Vrabel in New England, this mantra is only partially true.
Against the Raiders in Week 1, his team won the QB rating battle (80.6 vs. 65.6) the rushing margin (18 for 60 vs. 24 for 56), and tied Vegas in turnovers at one a piece. The Raiders lost-or-tied all three of Vrabel’s key phases, committed one more penalty, yet won the ballgame.
Clearly this isn’t an exact science. But to Vrabel’s point, winning the penalty war doesn’t necessarily translate to Ws.
And as far as Vrabel is concerned, some of the flags thrown on Sunday should have remained on the officials’ belts.
“We had some false starts,” said Vrabel. “One Will [Campbell] didn't move. Will pointed at the guy. You know what I mean? Will pointed at the guy that's rushing, and they called [a] false start.
“So again, I'm not gonna go through the crew and the guy that - it’s his first year, and they made some good calls. I'm sure that there’s ones that they'd like to have back. And we tell [our players] going in, ‘This crew, Dana over there, he calls the line of scrimmage tight.’ And if he thinks that [K’Lavon Chaisson] is lined up in the neutral zone, and he's not going to warn him, and he's just going to go throw the flag - I guarantee next week, all around the league, there's guys that are three inches in the neutral zone, and they tell them the next play, ‘Hey, back up or I'm gonna flag you.’ That's how this goes.”
It wasn’t just the on-field officials that Vrabel had differing judgment from on Sunday, as he lost his first challenge of the season on a 23-yard catch for Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle in the fourth quarter.
It was fairly clear from replay that the ball hit the ground, and the call should have been overturned. The CBS telecast immediately backed Vrabel as they came back from break to say the ruling on the field stands. This was not the case of a lost challenge by a coach where all of social media was calling him out for throwing the flag at the wrong time. Vrabel had it right, and for whatever reason, the replay center had it wrong.
“Tough day, I guess,” said Vrabel. “We know how this thing goes. It goes [to] New York, and there's one guy looking at three games, and there's one guy looking at another three games. And they could tell us what they want, but for it to be expedited was shocking. I'm OK losing a challenge, but give me the courtesy of taking a look at it in a two minute window.”
“The ball moved in his hands,” WEEI’s Chris Curtis chimed in.
“It didn't survive the ground,” said Vrabel. “Like, we know what the rule is. He's going to the ground. It wasn't like he had made a third step and completed it and it came off his body. It came loose.
“So we'll keep swinging. We have a good feel for how these things go in replay. But again, judgment.”
Vrabel vs. Zebras has the potential to be a very entertaining subplot to the 2025 season if, of course, his team keeps winning ballgames.
They’ll go for two and row in Week 3, hosting the Steelers (1-1) at 1:00 p.m. ET on Sunday.
As of publishing, the Patriots are 1.5-point home dogs at FanDuel. You can get New England on the moneyline at -102, and the total sits at 44.5.
Tune in each and every Monday throughout the football season to Patriots Monday on WEEI. Head coach Mike Vrabel joins The Greg Hill Show at 6:30 a.m. ET, and quarterback Drake Maye joins WEEI Afternoons.