New England Patriots - NESN.com
The New England Patriots earned a 24-23 victory over the Atlanta Falcons in Week 9, and wide receiver Demario Douglas turned in one of the best performances of the day, despite the fact that he was grieving the loss of a family member. When discussing the Douglas’ revelation, head coach Mike Vrabel made an eye-opening admission on the situation.
Douglas led the way for New England’s pass-catchers, as he hauled in four receptions for 100 yards and a touchdown. After the game, he revealed he did this despite losing his uncle on Saturday night after he was shot and killed.
It was an understandably emotional day for Douglas, and he figures to receive support from the Patriots throughout the week. According to Vrabel, though, he had no idea that Douglas was grieving this crushing loss during the team’s latest win.
“Obviously, was unaware of that,” Vrabel admitted on “The Greg Hill Show.” “When I became aware of it, just reached out to Pop and just said how proud I was of him to be able to do that, to carry that weight on his heart and then on his mind, and said whatever we can do to support him and his family and whatever he needed that we wanted to do that.”
There’s no doubt that this is information that Vrabel and the Patriots would like to have, as the team wants to help out Douglas anyway it can. However, he simply may have decided to hold off on revealing this personal matter in order to focus on his big game.
Over the next few days, New England will likely work with Douglas to help him and his family out during these trying times. In the meantime, the team will begin preparing for its upcoming Week 10 matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
