FOXBORO -- The three weeks Mike Vrabel spent watching his teammates battle it out while his broken right arm healed became downright frustrating, the linebacker admits.
So after finally seeing some action, although not much, last weekend against Miami, he was champing at the bit to get back in the trenches yesterday against the Cleveland Browns.
And boy did it show, as Vrabel became the first Patriot to record three sacks in a game since Henry Thomas picked up three against St. Louis on Dec. 13, 1998.
"Watching those guys, the effort they put out in the weeks that I was out, was frustrating," said Vrabel, who was part of a defensive unit that limited the Browns' offense to just one field goal in New England's 9-3 victory yesterday at Gillette Stadium. "You want to be a part of that and you want to be a part of guys playing hard, winning football games."
Coach Bill Belichick said Vrabel was given "a little bit of freedom on the pass rush" yesterday.
"We used him some coming off different edges and a little bit up the middle," he said. "We kind of tried to move him around a little bit. I thought that he took advantage of his quickness, getting off on the ball, knocked a couple of them loose. It looked like we were real close to recovering one or two of those. He gives us a good lift. It is good to have him back out there. He is a smart player."
Vrabel, an Ohio native who grew up a Browns fan, registered his first sack early in the first quarter when he dropped Cleveland quarterback Tim Couch for a 13-yard loss on third-and-seven.
The Browns were forced to punt on the next play, and five plays and 42 yards later, the Patriots held a 3-0 lead, thanks to Adam Vinatieri's 27-yard field goal.
The 13-yard loss marked the greatest loss of yardage on a Patriots sack in 15 games, the most since Willie McGinest and Ted Johnson tackled Buffalo's Drew Bledsoe for a 14-yard loss on Nov. 3, 2002.
It looked like Vrabel was going to be credited with another sack against Couch later in the quarter, which led to a fumble that New England defensive tackle Richard Seymour recovered at the Browns' 19.
But Cleveland challenged the play and the call was changed to an incomplete pass, based on the infamous "tuck rule" that played a crucial role in the Pats' victory over Oakland in the 2001 AFC semifinal.
Vrabel wasn't done, though. Late in the second quarter, with the Browns making their final drive of the half, he batted away a Kelly Holcomb pass intended for wide receiver Dennis Northcutt. After another incomplete pass, Cleveland ended up having to settle for a field goal.
Then in the fourth quarter, with the Browns opting to spread the field with five wideouts on third down, Vrabel raced in for an eight-yard sack on Holcomb, forcing Cleveland to punt. The Patriots picked up another field goal on their next offensive series.
"Last week, I didn't get a lot of snaps, which is probably good for the arm," said Vrabel, who still wears protection on his mending right forearm, which he injured Sept. 21 against the N.Y. Jets. "And this week, I thought I could progress a little more, and situations called for a lot more nickel. We worked all week on being able to just confuse whatever quarterback was in the game, figuring if they split the reps in practice, then maybe they wouldn't be as sharp as they normally are.
"I think first and foremost, we put a lot into this game," he added. "We knew how important it was and what time in the season we were at where you could start to go one way or another. We knew it was important with the schedule that we had coming up that we needed to win this football game."
