It does not appear that the New England Patriots coaching staff will be down a member after the Super Bowl.
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel was reminded during Super Bowl media week that he once jokingly said he would cut off his own penis to win the Big Game. The comment came in a 2019 appearance on the “Bussin With the Boys” podcast, hosted by former NFL players Will Compton and Taylor Lewan.
Compton, 36, and Lewan, 34, were on-hand for Vrabel’s media availability in San Francisco on Monday, February 2, where Lewan asked if he was willing to “go under anesthesia” if the Patriots defeat the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl on Sunday, February 8.
“I don’t need anesthesia,” Vrabel, 50, deadpanned.
Vrabel’s original proclamation came when he was Lewan’s Tennessee Titans head coach. The hosts asked him if he would be willing to cut off his penis to win another Super Bowl (he had already won three as a player). Without hesitating, Vrabel replied, “Been married 20 years. Yeah, probably.”
“You guys will be married for 20 years one day,” he added. “You won’t need it.”
Mike’s wife, Jennifer Vrabel, did not weigh in on the potential elective surgery at the time, but Mike did not seem to think she would mind. (Mike and Jennifer married in 1999 and share sons Tyler, 25, and Carter, 24.)
“She’d be like, ‘Do you want me to do it? Do you want to do it now?’” he said.
Surprisingly, Monday wasn’t the first time since the Patriots advanced to the Super Bowl that Mike was asked about that interview and if he was willing to go completely nuts. In a January 27 appearance on WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show, he was also asked if he was willing to go under the knife.
“Maybe I’ll cut it in half, but I ain’t cutting the whole thing off,” Vrabel replied.
He continued, “That was just to get that young fledgling group, Taylor and Will — get them to fly into the podcast game and it took off. I say a lot of things I don’t mean.”
With the possibility still in play that Vrabel could undergo the least popular weight loss regimen imaginable, he will look to quarterback Drake Maye to guide his team to victory on Sunday.
As of Tuesday, February 3, the Patriots are 4.5-point underdogs against the Seahawks, and Maye, 23, is rumored to be dealing with a shoulder injury. Vrabel didn’t confirm the injury specifically in his Greg Hill Show appearance, but said no one on the team is “100 percent healthy.”
“I would imagine we will go through the injury report, and whenever we have to turn that in, we’ll turn it in,” he said. “But nobody is 100 percent. This will be our 21st game.”
Maye downplayed any concern about his health during his media availability on Monday.
“I’m feeling good. I’ll be just fine,” he said. “I think [I] turned a corner landing on the flight — felt good from the flight — and throwing out there today. I really had no doubt in being 100 percent for the game. It’s the Super Bowl, you get two weeks to prepare for it. Do whatever you have to do to get it right, and I’ve got confidence and feel good.”
