A day after Eliot Wolf met with both local and national media on Tuesday, it was Mike Vrabel’s turn down in Indianapolis on Tuesday.
Vrabel spoke for just over 20 minutes, hitting on everything from Will Campbell, to meetings with potential draft picks, to Stefon Diggs and the approach the team could take in free agency.
Here’s what stood out the most during Vrabel’s availability:
On Stefon Diggs’ future with the team & if his court hearing plays a part in decision making moving forward
“Well, I mean, not only his future, but what he was able to do for us and come in and provide leadership. He worked extremely hard in the time that he was rehabbing from the knee. I think he was just a really good presence each and every week. So, as we look to evaluate the football team, we’re doing that constantly, Eliot [Wolf], myself, Ryan [Cowden], Stretch [John Streicher] and Eliot’s staff. Just being a little bit behind of where we were with just how long the season went, where those conversations for each and every player are happening in the meetings in between the ones we have the draft players here. So, there’s a lot of things that we’ll do between now and the time that the football season starts. So, that’s going to be the same with, I would say, most every player on our roster.
“I think that there are probably some things that go into – making decisions, again, we want our players to make great decisions. Again, we’ve tried to support those players that have some things that have come up, whether those are accusations – we’re going to let the legal process run its course, just like we’ve said before. Those players, whether that’s Stefon or anybody else that has something, have done exactly what they’re supposed to do, been where they’re supposed to be, communicated with the court when they’re supposed to communicate with them. So, we’re going to let all that take care of itself, and then we’ll have to see what the judgments are in those particular cases.”
On wide receiver A.J. Brown and their relationship
“It’s meant – I think the relationship with players, and specifically, you asked about A.J. It has meant a lot. I’ve watched him grow. I’ve watched him mature. I’m proud of him, proud of the father that he is. I’m proud of the husband. That has nothing to do with where he plays or where he played. Those are the things that are important. We reach out and text each other during the good things that happen to each other. Sometimes things don’t go so well for the people that you’re close with, and you text for those as well. It’s a two-way street of support and reminders of what got us to where we are here today.”
On the team’s approach to the upcoming free agency period
“I don’t want to tell you what it is because we’re still working through it. We want to have a plan, and we want to bring in really talented players that we have a vision for, that we also believe in the type of character that they have as we build this team and improve on what we did this year. We know how difficult that will be. So right now, the plan is to evaluate everybody that we can, have communication and conversations, when those times come, with the agents as we approach the tampering window. Right now, it’s about gaining information from our scouting department and having our coaches look at it and then figuring out a few players at each position that may help us.”
On what he and the staff look for in player interviews at the NFL Scouting Combine
“It really changes each and every interview, for me. I kind of sit there and listen for a little bit and just try to go in any direction and try to chime in where I can. But I don’t have like a set list of questions. I’m one of those reporters, Karen (Guregian), that kind of goes with the flow and I feed off their answer. I don’t have a list. You guys, you come up and you have a list of questions that you have to ask me. I ask questions based off the answers I get….Just trying to be authentic, open up about things that have happened, their growth, their maturity, things that they feel like they need to be successful from support people or coaching and where they feel like their development is. We don’t spend a bunch of time on X’s and O’s in 18 minutes. We don’t. We have an opportunity to do that down the line.”
On dealing with the Super Bowl defeat
“Again, I’ve tried to say that this is a terrible ending to a pretty fantastic season, one that I enjoyed probably as much as any other season that I’ve been a part of. Just from building it, enjoying coming to work, the relationships, bringing people together that were there in place, people that we brought in new, players that were there and staff that was there. Then also adding to that and knowing how delicate that can be. I enjoyed all that. I didn’t enjoy losing, certainly not that game. There’s work to do. We’re already back at the Combine, and this thing is rolling. Players will come in on April 20th. Again, we’ll have to have a program in place that’s modified from one they just went through and whatever modifications that we make to that.”
On managing expectations
“I think expectations should always be high. They were high when we started this thing just a little over a year ago. Look at the schedule, see where we go, see when we go to Seattle, see when we go to L.A. Everything’s a different challenge, but that’s a little far out. I think right now it’s about, from a coaching standpoint, what we did well, how we can enhance it, the new ideas. We have to have fresh ideas to what we’re doing in all three phases. That’s been my direction to the staff is to go through and focus on what we can do to enhance the core concepts, but also, I need to see some new ideas that maybe force us to push ourselves in a different direction. Not a wholesale change, but things that we feel like can help us, but that are also new.”