{"id":866413,"date":"2026-09-30T23:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T23:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/866413\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T23:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T23:34:12","slug":"mike-vrabel-downplays-report-of-issues-between-him-and-drake-maye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/866413\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Vrabel downplays report of issues between him and Drake Maye"},"content":{"rendered":"

Something\u2019s wrong with the Patriots. The challenge at this point is identifying the root cause of it.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, coach Mike Vrabel was asked about a report that there are issues between him and quarterback Drake Maye.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here because Drake was the quarterback<\/a>,\u201d Vrabel said, via Mark Daniels of MassLive.com. \u201cI don\u2019t have much to add to that about a comment from an unnamed source.\u201d<\/p>\n

First, it\u2019s hard to imagine that Maye was the primary draw. Vrabel seemed destined to coach the Patriots, regardless of the quarterback he inherited.<\/p>\n

Second, haven\u2019t we evolved past the point of disregarding reports simply because they come from unnamed sources? No one from the Patriots is going to go on the record with something that inflammatory. (At least Vrabel didn\u2019t call the report \u201claughable<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to wonder whether something beyond football is affecting the performance of the offense. Because Maye has gotten the bulk of the focus, few have broadened the lens to ask the question of whether Vrabel\u2019s off-field distractions from the offseason have contributed to the disappointing start.<\/p>\n

In that regard, Maye\u2019s regression has served as a shield of sorts for the question of whether Vrabel\u2019s entanglement with Dianna Russini set a bad tone that the team has struggled to overcome \u2014 despite their best efforts to turn the page.<\/p>\n

As NBC\u2019s Mike Tomlin said when the topic was raised prior to the Hall of Fame Game, \u201cWhen games start, winning matters. And so if they get off to a fast start, they\u2019ve got a chance to quiet some of that noise. If they don\u2019t, things could get extremely loud.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, the noise has landed on Maye. With a loss at Buffalo on Sunday, it could boomerang to Vrabel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Something\u2019s wrong with the Patriots. The challenge at this point is identifying the root cause of it. On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-866413","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\/866413","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=866413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}