Pats Pulpit
The Patriots’ 2025 season is right around the corner, and there is an air of excitement in New England. With Mike Vrabel coming aboard as head coach, and some major investments being made in free agency and the draft, the team seems well on its way to a successful rebuild.
How successful the first year of that particular rebuild will be remains to be seen, though. Obviously, success at this stage is not just measured by wins and losses, but that is the ultimate bottom line in the NFL.
And so, without further ado, let’s take a look at this week’s Pats Pulpit Debates question:
First some picks from our staff, then it’s up to the comment section for your picks.
Bernd Buchmasser: From coaching to overall roster talent, this year’s Patriots team is a better one that last year’s. That alone should lead to an uptick in wins and keep New England alive in the race for a playoff spot deeper into the season. At the end of the day, however, the team’s general new-look nature as well as still-existing shortcomings — including a lack of high-end talent at several spots and depth questions across the board — will lead to some growing pains and might cap the ceiling at eight wins.
Rich Hill: I think the Patriots will be completely mediocre in the best of ways. Good coaching and developing talent and an easy schedule should be enough to get this team to 9 wins and competing for a wild card slot.
Matthew Rewinski: Living in Music City and having a front row to all six seasons of the Mike Vrabel show, I’m lower on the Vrabel hype machine than most. To be completely honest, his reputation is mostly riding on a couple games thrashing the Patriots in extremely high-profile fashion (34-10 in 2018, the Corey Davis game) and of course, the AFC wild card game that both sealed Tom Brady’s last year as a Patriot and sent the Titans on a rocket ship to the AFC Championship (which, of course, they have never come close to reaching since).
Put simply, I don’t think the Patriots are as high-floor as they’re being billed. Realistically, the entire offense outside of Drake Maye is still full of wild cards, in both the good and bad sense, and the defense has the star power but it’s also Year 0 executing a completely different system literally none of them have played before. Even with a comfy last-place schedule, I’d bet the first half of the season will be a lot more of a grind than people think it will, and hopefully we see cohesive three-phases football by the time we’re Christmas shopping. Unless Josh McDaniels has another 2007 offensive scheme up his sleeve, of course. 6-7 wins sounds about right.
Marima: An 8-9 season would be a very successful year in Mike Vrabel’s first season righting this ship. So far it’s like...
