Some people are fans of the New England Patriots. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the New England Patriots. This 2025 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: New England Patriots.
Your 2024 record: 4-13, same as the year before. In retrospect, the Patriots' most impressive achievement of the season happened in Week 1: They caught the Cincinnati Bengals by surprise in a 16-10 victory that grew less impressive with each week as the Bengals dragged their feet to a 9-8 record with no playoff appearance. First-year head coach Jerod Mayo didn’t have many noteworthy accomplishments after winning in his debut, unless you count beating the Bears and Jets, two teams that fired their head coaches midseason, as well as a Week 18 exhibition against the Bills’ backups that mostly functioned as a way to lose the top draft pick while simultaneously boosting Joe Milton’s trade value. Hey, an extra fifth-rounder is basically the same as the No. 1 pick.
“In all likelihood, the Patriots will still be a bad team in 2024, but a season-opening victory really helps with morale,” I wrote after the team’s season opener. “Mayo, a rookie head coach, gets a statement win in Week 1 and is afforded more time to let rookie QB Drake Maye develop and learn.” I was only correct in that they would be a bad team. Don’t worry, I won’t be quoting more Defector articles about the 2024 Patriots, because we didn’t write any.
Mayo was always going to be under heavy scrutiny as the team’s first head coach after Bill Belichick—the Pats even baked in a succession clause in Mayo’s contract to show how serious they were about this plan—but he didn’t offer much in the way of inspiration. Late in the season, he took a swipe at offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt after dropping a game to the Arizona Cardinals. Following a 32-16 loss to the Jaguars in London, Mayo called his players “soft,” which prompted Belichick to defend some of his former employees in a radio spot. “You know, defensively, the Patriots led the league last year in rushing defense. Yards per carry, No. 1 in the league. And this year, they're way down in the 20s,” Belichick said on The Pat McAfee Show (of course). “It's the same guys.” Settle down, buddy—you also went 4-13 with them.
It feels fruitless to dissect Mayo’s tenure at length, because it was brief and the team was functionally designed to tank. Give that roster to any other coach, and they’re not doing much better. Mayo’s job, like Jacoby Brissett’s, was to facilitate the debut of rookie quarterback Drake Maye, who had very little help around him on offense. The team ranked dead last in passing yards and 31st in yards per game, only ahead of the Bears. They averaged 17.0 points per game. The offensive line featured far too much Vederian Lowe. Rhamondre Stevenson, who had 801 rushing yards on 207 carries, began to turn into Trent Richardson before our very eyes. There wasn’t a 1,000-yard receiver on this team. Hell, there wasn’t a 700-yard receiver on this team. Your leader in that category was tight end Hunter Henry, who had 674 yards. Wideout DeMario Douglas played one more game than him and finished with 621.
Going by their respective rookie seasons, Ja’Lynn Polk made Aaron Dobson look like Randy Moss. Man, remember Aaron Dobson? The hype when he was a draft prospect was that he didn’t drop a pass his senior year at Marshall. That wasn’t true, and anyway it was such an empty claim. Secure hands are irrelevant if you’re never open to catch the ball in the first place. Also, Dobson didn't have secure hands. Writing this part sent me into a spiral of remembering other recent Patriots draft picks who didn't pan out on offense: Dalton Keene, Sony Michel, N’Keal Harry ... did you know the Vikings once tried to convert N’Keal Harry to tight end? That was presumably so he could be dogshit at two different positions. Let’s move on.
Your coach: Hiring a former Patriots linebacker as HC didn’t work out, but surely it’ll click on the second try. This time it’s Mike Vrabel, whose greatest moments while coaching the Titans are intrinsically tied to Ryan Tannehill. The team clearly hired Vrabel to install a diluted version of the “Do Your Job” philosophy. These guys will have to get tough, and if they don't, then they had better start looking for a job elsewhere. What a novel approach to coaching an NFL team. We can all look forward to Vrabel carrying a 5-8 record into the Week 14 bye week and making a triumphant appearance on Taylor Lewan and Will Compton's podcast.
Obnoxious meathead coaches can win football games—Nick Sirianni is one of many to prove that—but I find Vrabel to be the unproductive type of lunk. In his introductory press conference, he said that his approach to offense is “aggressive but not reckless,” a fancy way of saying that he wants to run the ball a lot. Same shit he said when he coached the Titans. Mayo got the David Culley treatment so the team could set up a high draft pick and a better roster for the next guy. Vrabel gets to benefit from all that cap space, too. Expect his hiring to be an exhibit in the next racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL.
The rest of the coaching staff contains a few duds you may recall. Doug Marrone is your new offensive line coach, so the Patriots can just go ahead and skip to the part where they coax Dante Scarnecchia out of retirement again. Ben McAdoo survived the Mayo era, switching from senior offensive assistant to senior defensive assistant. But he did so well with the offense last year! Todd Downing, serving as the WRs coach, is presumably there in case the team hits a slump and somebody needs to be fired. But the most notable assistant coach this season is the guy whom Patriots fans can’t escape:
He’s back, again. Vrabel’s pick to run the offense is Josh McDaniels, the 2023 Worst Head Coach As Determined By The NFLPA. This man loves to leverage his time in New England into a promotion with an AFC West team, then get fired within two seasons. Take a good look, Chargers fans: This visor-wearing dope will be your head coach in 2027 when Jim Harbaugh finally catches a case he can’t beat.
For the first time in 25 years, there are no Belichicks on the Patriots’ coaching staff. The lesser-known son, Brian, absconded to North Carolina to follow his father and brother. To put the Belichicks’ perdurance in its proper context: The family’s regime in New England outlasted Bashar al-Assad’s in Syria by roughly one month.
Your quarterback: It goes against the spirit of the format, but I don’t have many mean things to say about Drake Maye. He has “Jesus” as the first thing in his Instagram bio, so that’s something to monitor, but what he does in his second year is the most intriguing part of this team’s season. The main concern is that his offensive line will cause him to suffer 28 concussions before he can be crowned the new Tom Brady.
What’s new that sucks: Three years ago, I would have been thrilled that the team signed Stefon Diggs. He now has more resentment in his body than knee mobility. After complaining about Aaron Dobson, N’Keal Harry, and Ja’Lynn Polk, I'm ready to compartmentalize and pretend that third-round pick Kyle Williams will somehow be better. The late Terry Glenn still holds some of New England’s rookie receiving records, but would you like to guess which Patriot has the most receiving yards in his rookie season this century? It’s Aaron Hernandez, with 563.
There’s a non-zero chance that you’ll have to become familiar with the name Efton Chism III. He might be the next Julian Edelman, or the next T.J. Moe. Nobody was wondering where T.J. Moe was these days, but I'll tell you anyway: He works for Jason Whitlock.
The Patriots will unveil a Tom Brady statue on Aug. 8 before a preseason game. Whoever convinced him that he could be a color commentator should be buried underneath it.
The team’s charter plane flew to Guantánamo Bay in April, causing the organization to run damage control. “The New England Patriots plane was not used for any kind of deportation flight and there were no detainees on the plane,” a team spokesperson told Vanity Fair, in a carefully worded statement. “Under our current charter manager, neither of the Patriots planes have ever been used for that purpose.” Oh, OK. It was probably for one of the many other reasons that a plane might fly to Guantánamo Bay.
This year's schedule release video was Dave Portnoy standing with the team's Super Bowl trophies and yapping for six minutes. I know that sounds like a lazy first-draft joke about the Patriots, but that's really what happened. If there's an ideal avatar for this franchise, it's a guy from Essex County who's been accused of sexual misconduct on multiple occasions.
What has always sucked: Do you really need a refresher here? Fine. The ghosts of Belichick and Brady continue to haunt this organization as it gets further away from its era of dominance. Regardless of how you want to apportion credit for the Patriots dynasty between coach and quarterback, it's clear that ownership deserves little to none of it. Robert Kraft wants to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame so badly that he backed some media projects in hopes that they'd confirm what a cool guy he is—wow, an octogenarian who wears Air Force 1s!—and his efforts, along with those of longtime Patriots flack Stacey James, have only resulted in the voting committee finding his desperation to be off-putting:
A half dozen voters pointed to James' lobbying as another intangible in Kraft's annual Hall of Fame campaign. With each passing year, they say, James has become more insistent and impatient.
"I was repelled by the push -- this idea, we'll do anything to win your vote," a longtime voter said. "It was never articulated, but it felt that way... I don't need to talk to anyone. And I can make up my own mind."
One Hall of Fame voter said he urged James and Kraft's other supporters to "go lightly -- and that's advice they obviously didn't take."
This billionaire owns an NFL team that has won in basically every way that matters, and he still craves official validation for his legacy before the Reaper's scythe cuts him down. Pathetic. If that isn't a parable for the limits of wealth, I don't know what is.
Do not believe any notion that Kraft is some kind of tragic figure. His Foundation to Combat Antisemitism exists to push Zionist talking points. This ghoul organizes birthright trips to Israel for NFL players so they can understand why the IDF needs to starve Palestinians and shoot children in the head. In response to last year's Gaza solidarity encampments, Kraft said he would stop donating money to Columbia University, because he was dismayed that the students took issue with an ethnostate that commits genocide. It makes sense that the Patriots' owner and his ex-coach are at odds now: Kraft hates what young people are up to these days, and Belichick likes it a little too much.
What might not suck: The Patriots finally have a left tackle in Will Campbell. On draft night, he tearfully vowed that he was ready to die for his new quarterback, so that could be fun. Who knows, maybe Vrabel's scheme will turn TreVeyon Henderson into the next Derrick Henry. Maybe Josh McDaniels will get arrested for a federal crime. Maybe Cardi B and Stefon Diggs will invite me to their next boat party.
HEAR IT FROM PATRIOTS FANS!
James:
I hate Jerod Mayo more than Drew hates actual mayo.
Jeremy:
Marcus Jones had to contact our offensive coordinator via text message during the season to inform him that he’s capable of playing offense.
Yamu:
The few instances of racism I've experienced as a brown guy living in New England for over 23 years have all come from guys wearing either Pats or Red Sox caps/jerseys.
We're going to suck for another decade till we magically land a decent coach and till then I'll enjoy cheap seats at Gillette because our fans are a bunch of bandwagon-jumping cretins.
Fuck Portnoy and his silly pizza reviews. I've been ordering pizza from Dragon Pizza out of pure spite.
Jaime:
Drake Maye is gonna get pancaked each time he drops back because his new left tackle barely has the arm length to tie his own shoes, never mind stop an NFL edge rusher.
Justin:
Bill Belichick rode off into the sunset, and in his place is a head coach who may or may not be a mannequin from the Gillette Stadium pro shop.
We used to be insufferably smug. Now we’re insufferably sad. The most exciting thing about the 2025 season is the throwback jersey schedule.
Steve:
We have the worst overall stadium experience in the league and it isn't even close. I went to a Carolina Panthers game last year during a weekend in Charlotte and it involved taking a lovely little half mile stroll through the heart of the city from my airbnb to the stadium. Had a splendid time watching some terrible football that afternoon! By contrast the last time I was in Foxboro I drove for like an hour and a half on Route 1 just to pay $50 to park at the ass-end of an unpaved lot three quarters of a mile from the stadium. There's no pedestrian tunnel underneath Route 1, just a few crossing points. So you get thousands of miserable fans in cars and thousands of miserable fans on their feet waiting for each other, each playing both roles in one trip to the stadium. There is no "beating the traffic" by leaving early, either - you're better off resigning yourself to spending two hours after the game in the god-awful adjacent outdoor mall consuming $12 Sam Adams pours and shitty slices of pizza left under heating lamps all day. All while you try not to ask yourself how one of the NFL's proudest franchises and richest owners can't better manage basic civil infrastructure in the goddamn woods thirty miles away from a major city.
This team has had five offensive coordinators in five years and the best two were both Josh McDaniels.
Hal:
Everyone is too afraid to come out and say Robert Kraft has lost his marbles, because they know the alternative is Jonathan and that is somehow worse.
The highlight of the Will Campbell introduction presser was Robert getting his name wrong.
The front office structure could best be described as "lots of cooks in the kitchen."
And yet, this season can already be declared a success because we have a coaching staff that knows how to run a meeting successfully. Congratulations boys, we did it!
Rob:
Took my daughter to see her first Patriots game last season, the last one before Drake Maye took over. Parents drinking Maker’s Mark out of the bottle with their small children watching in grim silence, tatted up 20 year olds talking about how they teach you how to drive drunk and not get caught when you are a student in the State Police Academy… these are nothing compared to the raw thrill of seeing 32 first half passing yards in person.
Jamie:
Drake Maye's wife is only 2 years younger than Bill Belichick's girlfriend.
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