Mike Vrabel: I’m confident that we’ll be aggressive in free agency

New Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel isn't expecting his team to sit on its proverbial hands next month when it comes to bringing in talent.

Vrabel said during his press conference at the 2025 scouting combine that he's hoping New England will be "aggressive" in targeting free agents.

"We want to be aggressive," Vrabel said. "We want to target players that we feel like are going to help us, that are going to be outstanding players, that are going to be outstanding additions to the locker room, in the community. And if that all fits and the compensation fits, I’m confident that we’ll be aggressive.

"We’ve started some of those discussions internally. And I think having different plans, and having an option A, an option B — things are going to change. Everybody’s looking at the same players. So we have to be ready to pivot, and adjust, and have a vision for each player, I would say, at each level. There’s high-level that things are going to get done very quickly. That’ll transition then to maybe just some mid-range dollars and then obviously you look at opportunity. So, free agency gets broken down into compensation and then it gets broken down into opportunity. And I feel like we're in a position to offer both, as far as compensation and opportunity for some of these players."

The Patriots have the most available cap space in the league heading into free agency, so they should be able to make some quality additions to their roster. And Vrabel effectively said that if New England has to overpay a bit to get a top target, so be it.

"Well I mean, I like to shop like everybody else," Vrabel said. "So when you go and there’s one of a certain car, maybe you have to pay a little bit more for that one car because there’s only one of them. When you start to get into a range where you feel like there’s an area where players are comparable and you like three or four players at a certain area for a certain role, you may not have to overspend.

"But it’s free agency. I think everybody overspends sometimes in free agency."