Is it the holiday already? Because Will Campbell had quite the celebration at the Boston Celtics game, taking his shirt off and chugging a glass of beer all in one go. But the New England Patriots rookie looked anything but NFL-ready, leaving Jerod Mayo’s brother, Deron Mayo, to potentially deal with the fallout. Wink wink.

According to ESPN’s Mike Reiss’s latest post on X, Mike Vrabel had the most hilarious reaction to Campbell’s shirtless moment, saying, “I’m thinking about firing our strength coach with the way he looked with his shirt off.”

Strength coach, aka Deron Mayo.

He’s been with the team since 2018 (the golden era), and Vrabel’s sarcastic comments feel more ironic since he’s the one who retained Deron in February this year. He was utterly impressed with the fact that Deron is among the handful of coaches “aligned in [team’s] vision to teach and develop our players with creativity, consistency.” 

As for the rookie offensive tackle, he’s been on the injured reserve for four weeks now. He sustained a serious injury in Week 12 against the Cincinnati Bengals, which later turned out to be a Grade 3 MCL sprain. He hasn’t played or practiced since then, replaced by veteran Vederian Lowe as the top left offensive tackle. Seeing him at the Celtics game certainly felt like an improvement; Campbell didn’t remotely appear NFL-ready. 

News served to you like never before!

Prefer us on Google, To get latest news on feed

Prefer Us on Google

Vrabel has mostly avoided the subject of Campbell’s return; he did confirm the injury is not season-ending and called the recovery process “good” earlier in December. In 12 games this season, the 21-year-old played 734 snaps and allowed five sacks, contributing to a pressure rate of 5.5%. Currently, the head coach and New England are giving the young offensive lineman time to recover, not rushing them with a comeback, as they need them more in the playoffs.

Mike Vrabel provides Will Campbell’s injury update 

Besides OT Will Campbell, defensive tackle Milton Williams is also sitting on the Patriots’ Injured Reserve. However, for the sake of a winning season, both were spotted walking through the team’s locker room without braces or boots. Perhaps, there might be a comeback in Week 18, and HC Vrabel confirmed neither will miss the playoffs, even if he held back an exact return date.

“We’ll get them back. We have a plan for each guy,” Vrabel said on Friday. “I appreciate them being good with the plan that we have, talking about being in the meetings, then getting out of meetings early, going to rehab so that there’s some timing and we’re not overloading the training room. And then usually a week before they can start practicing, we’ll get them into meetings full-time, kind of go from there and see.” 

As of now, the return timelines may take two to four weeks at maximum. Williams still has a firm date, scheduled for December 28, for the clash against the New York Jets, but the team isn’t following the same rule book for Campbell, given the seriousness of his injury.