What to make of Vrabel in contact with NE at draft
Mike Florio lays out the news of Mike Vrabel reportedly being in contact with the Patriots during day three of the draft when he was attending counseling.
Video Transcript
There was a report during ESPN's draft coverage from Peter Schrager that Mike Vrabel, as it says down there, was in constant contact with the Patriots on Saturday while he was missing the third day of the draft because he was attending counseling.
And the reaction to that is, well, I mean, what, what, what is this?
You can't be with the team, but you're still in constant contact.
And it created the impression to me that this is just some sort of a clumsy punishment by the Patriots.
If he's truly in constant contact with the Patriots on the third day of the draft when he's supposed to be in counseling and focusing on his family, this is just for show.
"Hey, we need to do something.
Hey, let's do this.
You're not gonna be in the room on the third day of the draft."
"Well, well, wait, we got a lot of work to do."
"Well, okay, you can still text them and call them, but you can't be in the room."
Then Schrager tweeted, he said, "Following up on the report..." I mean, that's a hell of a way to say, "I was dead wrong."
Now he's saying that, "Oh, no, no, he wasn't there at all.
The plan was for them to be there.
The plan was for him to be in contact, excuse me, but he wasn't in contact.
They thought he was gonna be in contact, but he wasn't."
That is a, that's a big gap.
That's a, that's a one eighty if I've ever seen one.
And I, I'm not here to say that Schrager got it wrong.
He may have gotten it dead-on balls accurate.
But if he did, it's the latest chapter in this clumsy, awkward PR disaster that everyone connected to this mess has responsibility for.
Patriots, The Athletic, the crisis communications expert hired by Ru- Diana Russini, formerly of The Athletic, and connected to Mike Vrabel through all the photos that got this all started nearly three weeks ago.
Everybody screwed this up, and the latest screw-up is putting out this idea that Vrabel was in constant contact with the Patriots on the third day of the draft, and now having to get out the mop and the bucket and say, "Oh, no, no, no, no, he wasn't.
No, he wasn't.
Nothing to see here.
Everything is fine.
Everything is awesome."
And then they move on until the next development, and I have a feeling there will be more developments, probably at least another development before we are live on Monday morning with PFT Live, seven AM Eastern on NBCSN, Peacock, and Sirius XM eighty-five.
