SAN JOSE, Calif. — Most Friday mornings, Stefon Diggs is a little late to the Patriots’ team meeting.

If Diggs isn’t late, he ducks out after 20-25 minutes for the same reason he’s normally tardy.

But Mike Vrabel doesn’t mind.

Even a No. 1 receiver has to go No. 2.

“Little buddy’s gotta take a poop,” Vrabel often says as Diggs exits a room full of chuckles.

Diggs is extremely regular, something you wouldn’t know unless you’re a regular inside Vrabel’s team meetings. In those meetings, you would learn “little buddy” is a nickname Vrabel gives just about every player, save for the linemen. It’s his way of tweaking them, reminding them who’s boss. Even Drake Maye, from time to time, is Vrabel’s little buddy.

“Everybody gets it,” said Pats receiver Pop Douglas.

According to veteran players and well-traveled assistants, Vrabel’s meetings are a unique experience inside the NFL. He will vacillate between serious football talk, including the tiniest minutiae of situational football and referee tendencies, to jokes and X-rated zingers.

“He’s just got so many one-liners,” said outside linebackers coach Mike Smith, now on his sixth NFL team. “He’s the best I’ve ever seen at it. He really is.”

Several players declined to reveal Vrabel’s most memorable lines, insisting they are too profane.

“Vrabes says some wild stuff,” Hunter Henry said.

But some one-liners are so good Patriots quarterbacks coach Ashton Grant won’t let himself forget. Grant keeps a running list of Vrabel quotes on his iPhone, which he scrolled Monday at Super Bowl Opening Night. Grant found only one PG-rated entry. He read it aloud: “There are two places you can stay for free: in your lane and out of my business.”

Grant chuckled to himself.

“I would say we do a good job of having fun in our team meetings and keeping it light, yet serious,” he said. “And I think (Vrabel) does a really good job with that.”

Christian Barmore is one of the more frequent targets of Vrabel’s cracks. Barmore sits in the front of the room, right next to fellow defensive tackle Milton Williams, who is often spared during meetings. Though Vrabel will criticize Williams, his highest-paid player at $104 million, when appropriate.

“He’s not really clowning me. He will call us out,” Williams said. “He’ll clown Will, though. Will’s his baby.”

Ah, yes. Will Campbell. Vrabel’s first draft pick in New England, and the Louisiana love child he never had.

Campbell and Vrabel are unusually close for a head coach and 21-year-old left tackle, close enough Vrabel lets Campbell run part of his Friday meetings with a weekly “weekend update” segment. During Campbell’s segment, he addresses the team from the front of the room a la a news anchor. He covers pertinent information, like the weather forecast for the Patriots’ upcoming game, and reads scripted jokes he wrote with John “Stretch” Streicher, Vrabel’s right-hand man and vice president of football operations and strategy.

For example, the Friday before the AFC Championship Game, Campbell’s weekend update featured team awards. Not MVP, Offensive Player of the Year or Rookie of the Year, but honors like the Dwarf award, which he split between Douglas and defensive captain Marcus Jones, who both stand at 5-foot-8.

But before teammates laughed at one another, Vrabel had them busting a gut over Campbell losing more than $1,000 in a matter of minutes.

New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel speaks to the media during a press conference after a NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/John Amis)

In early November, Vrabel discovered the Patriots’ offensive linemen abide by a fine system they designed to keep one another accountable and simultaneously raise money for an end-of-season trip they planned to take together. Players are fined if they commit basic football mistakes or otherwise find themselves in unfavorable situations during the season, like hearing Vrabel call them out by name in a team meeting.

But instead of simply sharing he found out about the fine system, Vrabel used it against his O-linemen. More specifically, Campbell.

That week, Vrabel pulled up clips of the Patriots offense in a team meeting. Standard stuff. Then, he turned to his young tackle.

“Will, what’s the call here?” Vrabel asked.

There went $100.

“Will,” Vrabel repeated.

Make it $200.

“C’mon, Will.”

$300.

Players quickly got wise to their coach’s antics, and the room echoed with roaring laughter. By the end, Vrabel said Campbell’s name 11 times in that meeting alone.

But when Vrabel called on a veteran, like center Garrett Bradbury, he refrained from name-calling.

“Hey center, what do we do here?” he’d ask Bradbury.

Then, before long, it was back to: “Hey, Will. What’s the call here, Will?”

Of course, it’s not all fun and games and fines in a Vrabel team meeting. He can be stern and harsh, and is always direct. One comment shot at rookie left guard Jared Wilson, telling him to “just f—ing block the guy,” cut to Wilson’s core after a poor performance during the Pats’ win at Tennessee. But Wilson shook it off.

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“We understand that he was a player, and he knows he’s done everything. He jokes with players, jokes with the coaches, so it’s just so natural for him. He’s one of us,” said rookie left guard Jared Wilson. “And it’s easy to laugh when he makes jokes, because you know it’s nothing personal. It will never be personal.”

Second-year safety Dell Pettus says times like that, when Vrabel will hammer a player’s mistake to hold him accountable, are quite common. Back in the spring, Pettus said, Vrabel’s tone conveyed everything about how seriously he took

“I remember being like, these folks are not playing around. These coaches are serious about what they say,” he said. “There are still plenty of those moments.”

But perhaps the most animated Vrabel gets is when he’s sharing what he calls “football porn.” These are plays of physical dominance and textbook technique; the essence of the game on full display.

“He showed us one the other day of this guard pulling, and the guard just ran right over a linebacker,” Smith said. “And (Vrabel)’s like, ‘That’s football porn, boys! Hell, we could watch this 10 times.’”

And maybe they did.

In a Vrabel team meeting there are few constants. Wednesday and Thursday meetings kick off at 9 a.m. and Friday mornings start at 8. You will laugh and learn, and you will be on time.

Unless you’re a star receiver with a GI tract that runs like clockwork.

In that case, just take your time, little buddy.