Patriots coach Mike Vrabel has kept quarterback Drake Maye and other key starters out of the first two preseason games. He’ll apparently do the same in the final game, on Thursday at the Browns.
Asked whether it’s important to get those players game reps before the regular-season opener at Seattle, Vrabel had a simple response.
“I do not think we have a very deep team,” Vrabel said, “so I think we have to make sure that we are preparing our football team and that we are doing everything that we can to keep our best players available. And if that means playing Thursday as part of preparation, then that is what we will do. I have not made that decision yet, but I would say that that is something that I am confident in with where we are set up currently.”
That’s the balance every coach must strike when it comes to the preseason. Preparation versus injury risk. Full contact and live tackling enhance that risk. And no coach wants to be the one who lost an important player for the season, before the season even began.
And to the extent the Patriots lack depth, Vrabel needs to get the young players ready to go for the real thing. Live reps in preseason games can help.
“There are a lot of ebbs and flows of a professional football game, and how can you handle making a mistake?” Vrabel said. “How can you handle getting blocked? How can you handle having a good play and then coming back and being able to do it again? And how they bounce back, how they handle different situations. What they do in live action, I think, is really critical.”
Whatever the plan, the real thing is only 17 days away. And, one year after the Patriots opened the season by losing at home to the team that became the worst in the league, the Patriots go on the road to face the Super Bowl champion — in a rematch of a game the Patriots badly lost the last time around.
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