Mike Vrabel shares his ‘level of concern’ over Drake Maye shoulder injury

On Thursday afternoon, New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel spoke for the first time since the team officially listed quarterback Drake Maye on the injury report with a shoulder issue. After noting that the injury was not something Maye was previously dealing with ("because he would have been listed on the injury report before"), Vrabel was asked his 'level of concern' about his starting quarterback's throwing shoulder.

"Not much," Vrabel quickly replied. "I try not to have a whole lot of concern. I just want to try to prepare the football team and make sure that everybody is ready and that we all have a plan - not to surprise anybody."

Vrabel was also asked if or how the Patriots' practices would change with Maye dealing with the shoulder injury. In what sounds like an encouraging update, it doesn't sound like any sort of change is part of the plan.

We're going to operate as we normally would here on a Wednesday," Vrabel said. "Even though it's Thursday, this is a Wednesday for us and that's kind of how we'll approach it."

Both the Patriots and Seattle Seahawks took Wednesday as an off day leading up to Super Bowl LX. That made Thursday the Patriots' first practice of the week - which is typically Wednesday during the regular season.

Media availability at that practice was brief, consisting of stretching and one special teams period. Maye was on the field with the team and went through stretch. During the special teams period he was chatting with offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. While he had a football in hand, none of the quarterbacks including Maye threw a pass before the media portion of practice closed.

More update on Maye should come later in the day on Thursday. He is schedule to speak with the media late in the afternoon, and the team will be releasing its first real post-practice injury report (Wednesday's was an estimation after the off day) later in the evening.