'Those are Words That Came From Them. I Don't Agree.' Robert Spillane is Pushing Back Against Mack Hollins and Mike Vrabel Questioning Whether Every Patriots Player is Buying In
In this week's episode of Dirty Water, I told Mut and Hogdale I'd throw a dollar in the Cliche' Jar as punishment for calling Sunday's Pats-Lions game from Munich a Gut Check Game. But it was a buck well spent to make the point that this is where the Patriots prove the Packers debacle was an outlier, or it signals some deeper, underlying issues with this team.
The case for the former will be made if they come out of the locker room putting together drives on offense and making stops on defense. And not, say, needing a third or a half of the game to sort out their shit.
The case for the latter was made, first vaguely by Mack Hollins immediately after the game:
And then indirectly by Mike Vrabel the next morning on his contractually obligated weekly radio hit:
… not them then let us know by tomorrow.”
Obviously the trade deadline he was referring to came and went without him so much as making a move on the fringes of the roster. Which might suggest the "if" Hollins and Vrabel both used is an "if not." As in, guys are not OK with getting blown out (Hollins), and do not not want to be be here (Vrabel).
But there's got to be something to this, for both guys - leaders on this team in their own distinct ways - to say something so eerily similar less than 24 hours after the game ended. This has all the feel of being frustrated with some guys not buying into what the coaches are selling. Not quite a civil war. Yet. But maybe battle lines are forming. And if things go bad again in Germany, we could see a classic Shootout in the Lifeboat.
There was also Demario Douglas Sunday, talking about a general lack of energy around the club. Sounding more like some guys are just kind of not feeling it:
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… the offense go out on the sidelines when the defense out there, I feel like we need to be out there [on the sidelines] to be like ‘let’s go.’ I feel like that’ll help the energy around the whole team. I feel like once we get that together, be a tighter team, we’ll clean a lot of things up.”
As far as I'm aware, the first player asked about these comments since Vrabel spoke on Monday was Robert Spillane earlier today. And there's no doubt everyone else will be in the days to come. And for his part, Spillane was having none of it:
… "Those are words that came from them. I don't agree with those words"
"You are going to have ask Mike Vrabel and Mack Hollins about the comments they decided to make" Patriots LB @14rspillane joins! "Those are words that came from them. I don't agree with those words"
Calling both guys out by name might read as a little harsh. But not as harsh as the sound of his voice. It's not hard to imagine he's extremely hacked off about the comments, and having to address them.
But on that point, I give Spillane credit. At least he did name names.
Whenever you do that vague, non-specific thing where you suggest some people are doing some thing without singling anybody out, you're playing a dangerous game. You risk alienating the very people who are doing everything you ask of them. Because you put them under suspicion, along with the guilty ones. Let your office manager hold a meeting where they gripe about how some people aren't pulling their weight and that's why the branch is struggling and there could be layoffs, and see how the ones who are doing all the work and hitting every quota react. It's never pretty when you lump the people you need in with the losers. And invariably leads to the good ones giving their two weeks notice.
There are plenty of historical examples, but I'll with the most obvious. During the French Terrors, the darling of La Révolution Maximillian Robespierre, got tired of everyone not getting guillotined fast enough for his liking. So he went home for six weeks and left all the running of France - and all the head-chopping - to others who were working day and night, lucky to get four hours of sleep. When Ol' Max came back, he gave a two-hour speech before The Committee for Public Safety (great name) bellyaching about how some were being counter-revolutionary in general, and conspiring against him personally. But never once gave the first hint about who he was referring to. So now everyone was a suspect. In short order, all the accused grew sick of his merde. And within days, he was having his jaw torn off his skull (long story) and was "Getting a Shave From the National Razor." Facing up, so he could see the end coming.
Granted, that's the extremest example of what happens when you decide to be ambiguous about whom you're calling out I could think of. But a simpler example is you piss off your second leading tackler and make everyone on your roster have to answer to a controversy.
Bill Belichick might have not been a huge bundle of laughs. But this nonsense never happened on his watch. Maybe there's something to be said about keeping everything in-house.