New England Patriots - NESN.com
The 2025 Patriots should be better than last year’s team, but by how much?
One ESPN analyst believes Mike Vrabel could lead New England to an incredible turnaround. In a piece published Thursday, Aaron Schatz, creator of the widely used DOVA metric, identified the Patriots as one of the teams that could go from worst to first in their division.
“ESPN’s stats believe in Drake Maye,” Schatz wrote. “He finished 17th among qualifying quarterbacks with a 58.6 QBR in 2024, as QBR attempts to separate the quarterback from his surroundings. The surroundings are supposed to be better this season, but how much better are they?
There are a lot of new faces in New England, which starts with an improvement at head coach in Mike Vrabel. … With all this added talent, plus simple regression to the mean, the Patriots are almost guaranteed to be better than a year ago. They also have an easy schedule that ranks 28th based on average projected DVOA of their opponents.
“The problem isn’t the new faces, but the old faces. Namely, the old faces still wearing Buffalo uniforms: Josh Allen, Christian Benford and Matt Milano. Per FPI, the Bills have the best chance to win their division of any NFL team (65%), making it much more likely that the Patriots are shooting for a wild-card bid.”
Using his DVOA metric, Schatz gave New England a 14.0% chance of winning the AFC East (third-best odds in the division) and a 33.9% chance of making the playoffs (12th-best in the AFC).
Ultimately, hot takes in June mean absolutely nothing. None of the NFL’s 32 teams will look the same in September as they do right now.
Nevertheless, there is genuine optimism in New England, with the Patriots seemingly primed to rebound after consecutive four-win seasons.
