New England Patriots
“Mike can talk what he wants to talk about, all due respect.”
Mike Vrabel was candid on Monday morning when asked about the influence of the officiating during Sunday’s loss to the Buffalo Bills.
Little went right for New England down the stretch in Sunday’s eventual 35-31 loss — be it the Patriots’ defense coughing up five straight touchdown drives, New England’s special-teams unit relinquishing chunk yardage on kickoffs, or Drake Maye and the Patriots’ passing game getting grounded in crunch time.
But, a few costly rulings by John Hussey and his officiating staff loomed large in Sunday’s result, including a pass-interference call against Marcus Jones on a fourth-down play and a DPI against Carlton Davis that extended Buffalo’s eventual game-winning TD drive.
It wasn’t the lone reason why New England came up short at Gillette Stadium.
But, Vrabel took umbrage with some of those calls when asked about it during his weekly interview on WEEI.
“They do have a difficult job. The consistency, sometimes I struggle with it,” Vrabel said on “The Greg Hill Show.” “I’ll say this: The Bills lead the NFL in offensive holding, and I’ll leave it at that. And that would be hard for me to understand how the team that is coming into the game leading, and that’s how they play, didn’t have one yesterday. That’s hard for me to understand.
“And they’re fine with that,” Vrabel continued. “Again, that’s how they play. They’ve been successful, and they’ve been able to overcome those. That was just my point was just if they’re there, call them. And I’m sure ours are penalties, we can debate [the penalty call on] Marcus Jones. I don’t think it was a catch, whether we think it’s a [pass interference call], that’s their call.”
Speaking on Monday, Bills head coach Sean McDermott offered his retort to Vrabel’s comments.
“We go by what the officials call,” McDermott said. “We’re focused on the Cleveland Browns at this point. So, Mike can talk what he wants to talk about, all due respect. We enjoyed a good game yesterday, a hard-fought game, and we’re moving on.”
Speaking to the media a few hours after his WEEI interview, Vrabel stressed that the onus still fell on the Patriots to not let penalties be the deciding factor in such a critical matchup.
“There’s nothing that we can do. They see what they see,” Vrabel said. “They call it the best that they can. I’m confident in that. We have to know what it is that they’re looking for to call penalties. They have mechanics that they’re looking for, we have to understand that and we have to play to that. No more, no less. Officiating or the penalties weren’t the reason that we lost the game.”
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