The Patriots’ curious preparation: simulating Bad Bunny’s performance
Mike Vrabel, the New England coach, is thoroughly preparing his team for this Sunday's Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks.
The Super Bowl is here. This Sunday, the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks face off at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara with the Vince Lombardi Trophy on the line, and every detail prepared in advance could make the difference.
Sometimes a coach’s desire to control everything is so strong that it leads to unusual methods. If you need proof, just ask Mike Vrabel. In his first season at the helm, the Patriots’ head coach has transformed a franchise that had won only four games across the previous two seasons, and this week he has left nothing to chance.
Friday’s session, the final practice for both teams before Sunday’s game, produced a particularly striking account of the Patriots’ preparations at Stanford, where New England has been training. Lindsay Jones described a curious method employed by Vrabel: “But Vrabel doesn’t usually pull his team off the field and send them to the locker room an hour after practice begins, as he did on Friday. After a special teams session, Vrabel blew his whistle at 1:52 p.m. and signalled the players to leave the field. The players remained in the locker room for 14 minutes while Bad Bunny songs played over the stadium’s loudspeakers.”
The logic is clear. Super Bowl halftime is completely different from that of any other game. Normally, halftime lasts barely fifteen minutes, leaving little time for players to cool down. In the NFL final, however, the halftime show, which runs for about 13 minutes plus the time needed for setup and takedown, can keep teams in the locker room for more than half an hour, creating a real risk of disrupting their rhythm.
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The spectacle itself, with music blasting throughout the stadium, can also be a distraction. Vrabel wanted to prepare his players in advance, giving them a taste of what they will experience on Sunday when Bad Bunny takes over Levi’s Stadium for fifteen minutes.
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