Vrabel held the annual pre-draft presser nine days out from the draft.
Nine days away from the start of the NFL Draft, New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel addressed the media at Gillette Stadium.
Here are the top takeaways from the annual pre-draft press conference.
Need vs. Best player available
Throughout the offseason, both Vrabel and Executive Vice President of Player Personnel Eliot Wolf have highlighted the desire to draft the best player available on the board. They hope that player will align with a position of need, but know that is not always the case.
“We certainly want to pick the best player as many times as we can,” Vrabel said. “The player that we think at that point is the best player and then we’ll figure it out. Maybe you look at one position and then we may have some returning starters — or we feel like are starters — or there’s depth at that position. But to add premium players when available is something that you should probably always try to do.”
At they sort through their options at No. 4 overall, they continue to balance both need and best player with the select group of prospects they expect to be available.
“Where we’re drafting there’s a handful of guys. We’re not in the market for a quarterback. That ought to eliminate anybody that throws the football,” Vrabel said. “But I do think there are certainly players we covet at every level. That’s the thing we’re finding as you go through.
“It’s a complete package. It’s about the player and it’s about the person, and most importantly, I think for me, the vision that we have for them and the impact that they’re going to make in the locker room and make in the community.”
Quality people and players
During an active free agency period, New England made sure to put an emphasis on those high character individuals — in addition to good football players — that will impact the locker room as Vrabel begins to establish his culture inside Gillette Stadium. Those qualities will continue to matter when adding players in the draft, but talent at some point can outweigh other factors.
“We don’t want to take risks. We want to be aggressive. I think there’s a difference between taking a risk and being aggressive in adding quality players and people on the roster,” Vrabel explained. “That’ll happen throughout player acquisition — I think that’s something that’s important.
“Certainly the talent of the player has to be evaluated first. Then you go through a lot of different exercises and conversations to try to figure out the type of person. You can’t win, you can’t do what we want to do with just a bunch of good dudes. That’s not going to get it done.”
Starting tackles
The biggest hole that remains to be filled on the Patriots roster is at left tackle. New England could look at the top of the draft to address the position, most likely leading to LSU’s Will Campbell or Missouri’s Armand Membou.
Both players come with a level of risk, however. Campbell would be an outlier at the position due to his 12 percentile arm length and seventh percentile wingspan. Membou would need to flip sids along the offensive line after only playing right tackle throughout his collegiate career.
The question marks with both players have led to a draft season debate of if either are worthy of the No. 4 overall selection.
“I think there’s some starting tackles that certainly will come in and start in the NFL,” Vrabel answered. “And I think that that’s really what you start to look for, right? Is impact players when you start picking that high. What they’re going to do for you. What’s the impact? What’s the position? You talk about premium position, and so then that’s where you kind of weigh all the circumstances and end up making that pick. So, do I think that there’s starters in this draft at left tackle? Yes, I do.”
Trade calls
There is an expectation that teams will not be desperate to move up the board in this draft class. But, that could always change when teams are on the clock. New England will listen if that’s the case, but those conversations are more likely to be held the closer it gets to draft day.
“I’d say it’s probably a little early for that, in my experience,” Vrabel said. “A lot of those happen next week when we get a little closer to the draft. There’s still some prep and some managing that goes on and the coaches reports. So, it’s probably a little early for some of those conversations to happen.”
Outside of the top ten, New England will continue to be aggressive but not reckless when moving around the board to try and land the players they prefer.
“There’s a lot of possibilities,” Vrabel said. “There could be players that maybe we covert that are on the board that are there at a certain point and we have to determine how far we are away from where that player is. That will be the same thing when you talk about trading back. Like, how far do you want to trade back? Are there still going to be players there that you want at that particular level.”
Stacking the board
With less than 10 days to go until the draft and 30 visits over with, the Patriots top brass of Vrabel, Wolf, Ryan Cowden, and Co. now put together their draft board — which is set both vertically and then horizontally based off player grades and the team’s ranking system.
For players who are ranked similarly, however, Vrabel pointed towards their versatility and testing numbers as things that could separate them from another.
As for the group leading New England’s personnel department, Vrabel has continued to enjoy the experience of working with them through the pre-draft process.
“We’re excited about where we were in free agency. And Eliot and myself and Ryan and Matt [Groh] and Cam [Williams], I want to thank all of them for their efforts thus far — the scouts,” Vrabel said. “I’ve always enjoyed sitting down with them, asking them questions. I mean these are the men and women that have been around these players and at practices for the last two years and have seen them interact with their teammates. They’ve seen them practice, so I want to thank them.”