With pads on in New England, there\u2019s an element of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do coming from the team\u2019s new coach.<\/p>\n
Mike Vrabel mixed it up as a player. He doesn\u2019t want his players to mix it up.<\/p>\n
The topic came up with a reference to Vrabel fighting during his first padded practice. Asked for details, Vrabel initially said, \u201cNope.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a little more prodding, the \u201cnope\u201d went to \u201cyep.\u201d<\/p>\n
After explaining the well-documented practical consequences of fighting during a game, Vrabel shared a story about his first fight. <\/p>\n
\u201cGreg Lloyd was a very dominant player, imposing figure,\u201d Vrabel said. \u201cI got drafted in April, and he didn\u2019t say a word to me through OTAs. I\u2019m on the defense, mind you. He didn\u2019t say a word to me the entire offseason. We go to training camp. There\u2019s a fight with me and a tight end. I\u2019m exhausted after practice, and I see this shadow come over me as I\u2019m sitting in the locker room. He\u2019s in his deep voice, and he\u2019s like, \u2018Yeah, the next time you want to come up underneath the face mask.\u2019 And I was like, ‘[You\u2019re] just now are going to talk to me?\u201d He\u2019s like, \u2018Yeah, I just wanted to make sure you weren\u2019t like a punk, and then I would talk to you.\u2019 So, it\u2019s a good example of just a veteran making sure that rookies kind of earn their stripes, I guess, a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s still true today. And there will be young players in New England who will want to earn their stripes \u2014 and\/or to prove they\u2019re not \u201clike a punk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless, no responsible coach wants his players to fight. Even those coaches who once fought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With pads on in New England, there\u2019s an element of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do coming from the team\u2019s new coach. Mike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-43449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}