The Draw Play

When the Patriots run finally ended a part of me wondered how long it would take for me to feel sympathy for them again. To see them have success and be okay with it. Would it be decades? Would it last as long as it took to get everyone from that era off the team? Well, after this season, I can safely say…I ain’t there yet.

The thing is, this Patriots team really is likeable and a team I would absolutely root for if they had one of like, 27 other logos on the helmet. Instead, they have that one. The same one I’ve watched in hundreds of primetime games, in dozens of playoff games, for most of my years on this planet. And I am not young.

My greatest excitement for the end of the Brady/Belichick era was the promise of new blood. The Chiefs dynasty rose up and they are irritating too, but they still haven’t been going for half as long as that Pats run lasted. But just like that, after less than a decade of being a regular dysfunctional team, the Pats are right back in it. Some teams draft top 10 for years on end, the Pats do it once and instantly find another franchise QB. Some teams cycle endlessly through coaches and the Patriots missed on just one. Some fans have been waiting for longer than my entire life to sniff a championship, and these fuckers are already back. Nobody outside the fandom is happy for them.

There is a possibility I am doomposting about what may end up being a fluke season, closer to the Patriots 90’s or 80’s team, and that they really are still just a regular franchise again but got super lucky this year. We won’t know till more time passes. But the Patriots certainly look set up to be good again, and the fans have good reasons to be happy and optimistic.

Now that the season is fully in the rear view, I think we can take a look back and judge everything a little more fairly. Longtime commenter Stunkei described them as a good team punching above their weight this year and I could not agree more. I think the 2025 Patriots were a definite playoff team, schedule or no. But I also think that they benefited from some luck of the draw and overperformed. I think in most years, this team is a slightly lower seed and gets bounced in the wildcard or at least the divisional. That’s not a knock against them, that’s a good team, and that they reached that level so quickly is a testament to how good they are.

Mike Vrabel is an amazing coach and he was my pick for coach of the year. This Pats team was bottom shelf tripe even with Maye last year, and he instantly showed how much good coaching can change an organization. I disagree with Josh McDaniels winning Assistant of the year (I would have picked Saleh or Kubiak) but he has helped Maye develop nicely.

Maye is legit. He looked deeply overwhelmed in the playoffs but I chalk most of it up to bad playcalling and inexperience. He also appears to have been hurt in the Super Bowl, which might explain some of those throws and limited playcalls. But the playoffs did a good job of highlighting what the regular season may have hid: he’s not that good…yet. Josh McDaniels might not be a scheme genius. Some of the decisions he made in the playoffs especially made no sense to me. It felt like he kept expecting Drake to be Brady instead of calling things to actually help his clearly overwhelmed young QB. I can’t help but wonder if the easy slate of defenses all year gave them too much self-confidence before the playoff gauntlet hit. Those playoff defenses were excellent and would hinder any offense, but many offenses still performed better than the Pats did against those same defenses all year.

Especially now that they lost the 2025 Pats will suffer the “Schedule Merchant” joke until they prove otherwise. The Pats didn’t just face an easy schedule; they faced one of the easiest schedules in NFL history. No niche stat a Patriots fan could throw at you to try and argue really softens that. Their level of competition jumped in the playoffs, but they still got deeply fortunate to face 3 teams with no offense and major injuries. None of this is their fault of course, you can only play who is placed in front of you, but it was a massive red flag going into the Super Bowl against a team that was all around great. Entering the playoffs my impression of the team was that both sides of the ball were good but not great. My impression of the offense worsened and I think it has some work to do, but my impression of the defense improved and I think the Pats defense might actually be the real heart of the team. The defense won all 3 playoff games and kept them in the Super Bowl longer than they felt like they had any right to be.

Next year the Pats will face the NFCN and AFCW, and be matched with other division winners as a first-place team. It’ll be a far more genuine test. The team has some problems to answer now (WR seems very thin, especially with Diggs facing potential jail time and likely a suspension) and the offensive line also has questions. They have a ton of late-round draft picks that could allow them to move around a lot.

The team is ahead of schedule now with a lot of flexibility and good people in the right places. I do not see them going away. They may not reach the Super Bowl again, but the window is back open.

Personally, I wish Drake Maye a very Dan Marino career.