Mike Vrabel
Mike Vrabel
Michael George Vrabelis a former American football linebacker and current linebackers coach for the Houston Texans in the National Football League. He played college football at Ohio State University, where he earned consensus All-American honors. He was chosen by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the third round of the 1997 NFL Draft. He also played professionally for the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs. After spending three years coaching linebackers and defensive linemen at Ohio State, Vrabel joined the Texans...
ProfessionFootball Player
Date of Birth14 August 1975
CityAkron, OH
Anybody we can get back to this football team at this point would help us, regardless of who it is. Whoever we can have back, we'll take back.
It's always good to win, because a win in this league is worth a lot. We can play so much better than that. But this is our football team. No matter who's not here, this is it. The team we suited up tonight is the team we've got all year. We've got to accept that and get on with it.
That kind of stamina and production over the course of eight or nine years is impressive. He's been a great teammate. He's done everything to help this team win. I think we're going to start to see a lot more Corey (in the coming games).
This will be a great test. It?s a division opponent, so there?s a lot of familiarity from the head coach right on down. This is a team that?s physical and has gone on the record as saying they want to play physical, dominate people and run the football, and it shows. They are doing that. It?s impressive, so it?s going to be a huge challenge.
And I don't think we're necessarily done. This team is set up for championships. I don't think we're necessarily finished. It's just that we've done all we can do this year.
They've run away with so many games, it's pretty much been over by the middle of the third quarter. That was our whole thing, to make it a football game -- keep it competitive and have a chance to win at the end. We handle those situations pretty well.
So at 250 pounds, I was trying to play that position my first year in Pittsburgh, and soon after that we changed to linebacker, but it took some time, ... It wasn't like they didn't have good players. Obviously, you've seen the type of players that leave Pittsburgh and go on to play other places.
We lost last week. We had to bounce back. It so happened it was the Pittsburgh Steelers.
We do seem to be able to handle these situations pretty well.
This is something that I'm sure has been thought about and has been planned. He'll be ready to go.
As a team, we've yet to form our identity. But every year we've proven we can play great football down the stretch. You get the sense that people are worried, but I think it's a little early to start hitting the panic button.
Are we a better 4-3 team? I think when we went to the 4-3 we gave them some problems. Those are four good defensive linemen up there. . . . It helped us.
I've always tried to think that it was an unwritten rule that you never try to put yourself in another team's locker room.
Our development as a group is not good. You look at where we're at defensively and what we've done, and it's not good. That has nothing to do with new guys/old guys, it's got a lot to do with guys that have to play better, everybody.