Boston, MA
Patriots defense makes statement after taking praise of Texans personally
FOXBORO — Mike Vrabel came straight off the practice field Friday to hold his final press conference of the week after four days of preparing for the Texans.
He’d been peppered with questions about the Texans’ vaunted defense all week, and for a moment, it looked like he was about to lose his cool when yet another reporter started with, “given the strength of the Texans’ defense…”
Vrabel closed his eyes, put his head down and rubbed his eyebrow with his thumb and pointer finger before keeping his calm and responding to the question about whether his team needed to be “perfect” this week.
Were they perfect in Sunday’s 28-16 win over the Texans? Absolutely not. But their own defense made a statement, forcing five turnovers and outshining the unit that some were comparing to the 1985 Bears and the “Legion of Boom” Seahawks.
So, was it fair to say that the Patriots’ defense took all that talk about the Texans’ defense personally this week?
“I’m sure they’re going to tell you in 30 seconds as soon as you guys go rushing out of here,” Vrabel said, smiling. “Again, they’re really good for a reason; they’ve shown it each and every week. But our guys are prideful men. And they want to compete and they want to win. And, again, they deserve the recognition that they’re going to get.
“They’re a top-five defense for a reason as well. Again, that’s how some of these things go. When it comes down to turnovers. And we’ve got to get back on track. We forced second-and-long, so we stopped the run. And I’m proud of each and every guy in there.”
For a team whose motto used to be “ignore the noise,” this new-age Patriots team heard everything, and they used it to deepen the chips on their collective shoulder.
And in the end, it didn’t matter that their own quarterback turned the ball over three times and fumbled twice more. It’s nearly impossible to lose when forcing five turnovers, and the Patriots defense — after having to hear all that talk, and seeing the graphic from ESPN’s “NFL LIVE” with all five pundits picking the Texans — was not going to accept defeat.
“It fueled the whole defense,” defensive tackle Milton Williams said after the game. “Ain’t nobody been talking about our defense all year. So, we’ll see what they gotta say today.”
Williams, who won Super Bowl LIX with the Eagles last season, was asked if he believes the Patriots have a championship-level defense. He answered immediately with, “Yes, definitely.”
The Patriots defense plays at a completely different level when they’re at full strength, like they were Sunday night with Williams, who had four pressures against the Texans, returning from injury in Week 18, linebackers Robert Spillane and Harold Landry coming back from their own ailments in the wild-card round of the playoffs, and defensive tackle Khyiris Tonga getting healthy for Sunday’s matchup.
Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud tossed four interceptions to three different players: cornerback Carlton Davis (twice), safety Craig Woodson and cornerback Marcus Jones, who returned his for a touchdown. Cornerback Christian Gonzalez forced a fumble, which Woodson recovered for his second turnover. The Patriots’ defense, which also caused havoc for Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert in the wild-card round of the playoffs, allowed just 241 net yards, sacked Stroud three times, hit him nine times, forced 27 incompletions, allowed 2.2 yards per carry and generated 27 pressures (per PFF) on 52 dropbacks.
“We got dogs on every level of our team,” Williams said. “Everybody’s doing their job at a high level. We all on the string and communication. Everything is just working together. Our coach is putting us in position to make plays, and we just execute at a high level. That’s all we need.”
While various defenders said all the praise the Texans defense received this week motivated the unit, both Williams and safety Jaylinn Hawkins said the players didn’t discuss it all week.
“We never talked about it,” Hawkins said. “We just seen it and kept it pushing.”
Outside linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson led the Patriots with seven pressures on Sunday and added a sack. He was in Stroud’s face on three of the QB’s four interceptions.
Vrabel credited the Patriots’ turnovers to complementary football, saying, “our turnovers are created by more than one guy.”
“Regardless of what the playcall was, see ball, get ball,” Chaisson said. “We had the opportunity to make those plays happen, and we did.”
It helped that the Patriots defense knew, coming into the game, that they couldn’t let Stroud operate out of clean pocket.
The Patriots praised Stroud all week, but he was coming off a wild-card round win over the Steelers when he was intercepted once and fumbled five times.
“If he’s kept clean, he can make any throw that any quarterback can make,” Williams said. “But under pressure, he puts the ball in harms away, and we tried to take advantage of it.”
The Patriots are going against another top defense next week when they face off against the Broncos. They will have more potential opportunities to generate turnovers, however, with Broncos backup Jarrett Stidham, a former Patriots draft pick, playing at quarterback in place of injured starter Bo Nix.
It’s going to be a little while longer before Roman Anthony returns to action.
The Red Sox outfielder has suffered another setback in his recovery from a sprained right hand and will be shut down from swinging for a couple of days.
Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy told reporters in Cleveland that Anthony tried hitting off a tee Thursday for the first time since suffering his injury on May 4, but that he found doing so to be painful.
“He hit off the tee (yesterday) and had some discomfort, so we’re going to slow play it,” Tracy said, per MLB.com’s Henry Palattella. “It’s going to be day-to-day, or even the better way is ‘action-to-action.’ (We’re going to be asking), ‘What did he do today, is that uncomfortable and do we have to wait?’ ”
Originally thought to be a minor issue that might not even require a stint on the injured list, Anthony has now missed 21 games and likely won’t be back until early-to-mid June.
The recovery process has also been halting. Anthony has continued doing most other baseball activities, including running and throwing, but it wasn’t until earlier this week that he could swing a bat free of discomfort.
Once he was able to comfortably take dry swings — or swing a bat without hitting the ball — the next step was hitting off a tee. Now he’ll be given a couple more days to heal and likely won’t try again until the Red Sox return home from Cleveland and are back at Fenway Park on Tuesday following Monday’s off day.
Tracy acknowledged that the recovery hasn’t gone as smoothly as expected, but emphasized that isn’t because of anything Anthony’s done wrong.
“That’s not Roman’s fault, it’s not anyone’s fault,” Tracy said. “It’s just he got hurt, and it’s a nagging injury on a hand when he’s trying to hit.”
Speaking to Rob Bradford on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast prior to Thursday’s game against the Atlanta Braves, Anthony clarified the exact nature of his injury, which was officially announced by the team as a right wrist sprain. Anthony said he has a partially torn ring finger ligament, specifically his ring finger CMC (carpometacarpal).
The sprain versus torn verbiage has generated some confusion among fans, though medically there isn’t a meaningful distinction between the two.
“I know stuff came out yesterday about tear versus sprain versus strain and all these different things, and I don’t know what to say other than any of those are a tear,” Tracy said. “You strain a hamstring and that’s a partial tear; fibers let go a little bit and they need to heal.
“I don’t think anything is portrayed differently or wrongly. If a guy strains his hamstring, I won’t come out here and say he tore his hamstring. That’s not how that works.”
Prior to suffering his injury, Anthony was batting .229 with one home run and a .675 OPS through his first 30 games this season.
Surprise: Another weekend and there’s more rain on the way. It’s bad enough we’ve had to post a First Alert.
For now, we’ll watch as clouds thicken today. We’ll squeeze out some drops later this afternoon and evening.
A weather maker is winding up in Canada, wrapping in cold air. All of that is going to dive down to New England.
We’re in the thick of it tomorrow. Rain will be coming at us in bursts with some dry time in between. Winds will likely push past 50 mph in Boston.
Those winds will eat away at temperatures; with wind chills barely above freezing. And no – not just in the morning – but the afternoon, too!
It’s so cold there’s the threat of snow as that rain bumps into colder air over the Berkshires, Worcester Hills and southern New Hampshire right up to Mount Washington.
The snow isn’t going to pile up but just know there could be some flakes flying over our highest hills.
The blue on our Futurecast map marks the spots where snow could mix with rain.
Rain spins out by Saturday evening but not before dumping about half an inch over Boston.
We’ll try to salvage the rest of the weekend with temperatures in the upper 60s by Sunday. Still, there’s the threat of bits and pieces of rain.
By the way, this isn’t any weekend, it’s the last weekend of spring. Meteorological summer starts on June 1.
The first day of summer remains drab and dreary with more rain chances and temperatures in the low 60 on Monday.
Federal immigration demands are once again centered on Massachusetts.
The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday sent three letters to Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox, Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins and Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden demanding, among other things, information on how many ICE detainers BPD has received and declined to honor from 2022 to 2026 and any communication between the three departments related to immigration.
House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said in a statement that “releasing repeat criminals back to the streets solely because of their immigration status is crazy, and that’s exactly what Boston is doing.”
But Democrats push back on that framing.
“You’re familiar with Jim Jordan and his antics,” said Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey. “This is more circus, it’s more theater and it’s not making our community safe.”
A spokesperson for the City of Boston wrote, “the city has provided this information many times…” going on to say “…these policies are part of keeping Boston the safest major city in America.”
The letters call for the documents to be sent to the House Judiciary Committee by June 10th at 5:00 pm. District Attorney Hayden’s office told NBC 10 they are reviewing the letter, neither Commissioner Cox or Sheriff Tompkins responded to requests for comment.
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