Mike. Vrabel. Spoke. Very. Deliberately…in his first pre-draft press conference as a head coach of the New England Patriots.
Everyone wants to know, is New England taking Will Campbell at No. 4 overall, or are they trying to trade back?
Vrabel stayed tight-lipped but did offer that he sees a solution to the Patriots’ gaping hole at left tackle. The question becomes where that left tackle is in the draft. When asked whether that solution was worth grabbing at No.4, the wheels turning within Vrabel’s brain were practically audible in the room.
“I think there’s some starting tackles that [pause] certainly will come in and start in the NFL. And I think that’s what you really start to look for, is impact players, when you start picking that high,” he said. “What they’re going to do for you, what’s the impact, what’s the position? You talk about premium position. [Long pause] And so that’s where you kind of, weigh the circumstances, and end up making that pick. So, do I think that there are starters in this draft at left tackle? Yeah, I do.”
Many draft experts predict that despite a late visit between Shedeur Sanders and the New York Giants and a compromised quarterback situation in New Orleans, Sanders will drop through the first round, and blue chippers Travis Hunter and Abdul Carter will both be gone by the fourth pick. If that’s the case, Vrabel and the front office are preparing for it.
“We’re in the process of going through what everyone calls these simulations. That’s been, and will continue to be, good exercises. It’s running scenarios, and what we would do based on those scenarios. To say that we have a definitive answer on those scenarios? No. But those are processes that are ongoing and will be done here shortly.”
Vrabel said there haven’t been a flurry of phone calls to the Patriots about potential trade scenarios, but it’s still early in the process for those deals, in his experience.
He has a reputation for his shrewdness and, despite holding a press conference that seems to indicate he is the new face of this Patriots organization, he’s being very strategic in not giving up the game. He wants front offices around the league to believe the Patriots may be enamored with Campbell (as he’s praised his game tape in the past), but he also doesn’t want to shut down potential trades. Anything the Patriots can do to pump up the perceived value of the fourth overall pick is beneficial. That doesn’t mean Vrabel doesn’t see Campbell as worthy of the fourth-overall pick, or a starting tackle.
What Vrabel certainly indicated is that the Patriots do have the ability to find a starting left tackle in this draft. That could mean Campbell, or trading back with an excitable partner to pin hopes on moving Armand Membou to the left side, or, perhaps, swinging back into the bottom of the first round for Josh Conerly Jr. Maybe the Patriots will get really crazy and go with the local kid, double-Eagle Ozzy Trapilo, in a middle round.
One other factor Vrabel made abundantly clear was that he doesn’t expect his team to be made up of a bunch of a boy scouts.
“The talent of the player has to be evaluated first,” he said, when peppered with questions about his emphasis on high-character guys.
“You can’t win and do what we want to do with just a bunch of good dudes, that’s not going to get it done,” he said.
Vrabel’s been in this league long enough – both as a player and a coach – to know that every team has compromises here and there. Maybe that’s not idealistic, but it’s realistic. If that’s his approach to the draft, it should be a welcome one.