| Projected Record | 8-9 |
| Weighted DVOA Offense* (2024) | 30th |
| Weighted DVOA Defense (2024) | 30th |
| Early Down Yards (2024) | 1st Down – 4.4 (tied-29th), 2nd Down – 5.2 (tied-15th) |
| Explosive Play Rate* (2024) | Offense – 22nd (Run 9th, Pass 28th), Defense – 1st (Run 7th, Pass 7th) |
| Red Zone TD Rate | 46.81% (30th) |
| Turnover Differential | -11 (28th) |
| Key Additions | Josh Dobbs QB, Tommy Devito QB, Mack Hollins WR, Stefon Diggs WR, Morgan Moses OT, Garrett Bradbury IOL, Wes Schweitzer IOL, Milton Williams IDL, Khyiris Tonga IDL, Kyle Peko IDL, K’Lavon Chaisson EDGE, Harold Landry EDGE, Robert Spillane LB, Jack Gibbens LB, Carlton Davis CB, |
| Key Departures | Joe Milton QB, Jacoby Brissett QB, Giovanni Ricci FB, Kendrick Bourne WR, Jaheim Bell TE, David Andrews IOL, Cole Strange IOL, Davon Godchaux IDL, Deatrich Wise EDGE, Ja’whaun Bentley LB, Jonathan Jones CB, Jabrill Peppers S, Joey Slye K |
| Rookies to Watch | TreVeyon Henderson RB, Kyle Williams WR, Will Campbell OT, Jared Wilson IOL, Andres Borregales K, Julian Ashby LS |
Players on IR: Deneric Prince RB, Lan Larison RB, Brock Lampe FB, Ja’Lynn Polk WR, Yasir Durant OT, Layden Robinson IOL, Isaiah Iton IDL, Jaquelin Roy IDL, Jahlani Tavai LB, Marcellas Dial Jr. CB
Quarterback
Drake Maye, a guy born and raised in North Carolina, who played at North Carolina, looks the part of a Boston Bro through and through. When the Patriots made him the 3rd pick in last year’s draft, it was with plenty of discourse. Maye was part of a 1-2-3 QB run at the top of the 2024 draft, and while Jayden Daniels saw team success, Maye and Caleb Williams instead spent the bulk of the season trying to offer glimmers of excitement on truly shitty teams. Maye plays like the frat boy he looks like: free-wheeling scrambles and throws all over the field, with the loud highs and the crushingly stupid lows. I was the classic Guy Sitting Up Straight meme when Maye took over against Houston in Week 6 last year: the Patriots went from a snoozefest to fascinating in an instant. Maye had 3 TDs, one on a go ball at the end of the half that was absolutely GORGEOUS to a receiver who shouldn’t be in the NFL, and 2 INTs, one on a deflected screen that flew at an impossible angle to a guy being blocked who caught it against his blocker’s helmet. It was weird, it was fun, it was delightful. That’s Maye: he has the unhinged energy of Brett Favre, he never gives up on a play, and good stuff and bad stuff happened in equal measure. It all added up to middle-of-the-road completion percentage, yards per attempt, big time throw rate, turnover-worthy play rate, and a 15 TD/10 INT finish. Maye is the wildest looking pedestrian QB I’ve ever seen.
There were a few takeaways from Maye that bear close scrutiny, even in a lost season with terrible coaching and the worst OL I maybe ever saw. First, Maye rarely let the ball go deep down the field. He was 35th of 43 qualifying QBs in percentage of passes 20 yards downfield or more and 36th of 42 in intermediate passes. He had the 15th highest percentage of passes behind the line of scrimmage and 5th most passes between 0 and 9 yards. This was the DEFINITION of popgun offense. Tua, who was actually last in the league on deep attempt percentage, was still 14th highest on intermediate passes. Maye was in handcuffs back there. What does that look like for Drake this season? With Mike Vrabel coming in, it seems very different. Ryan Tannehill’s best season, 2021, is probably the blueprint: Tannehill didn’t go deep all that often in play action, but sent the 8th highest rate of intermediate passes, staying middle of the pack in the short stuff. In that same year, new OC Josh McDaniels was putting Mac Jones through a playoff-caliber rookie year. Jones was 15th of 37 in intermediate passes and 22nd of 38 in deep passes. Both the OC and the head coach want to run the ball and pass out of play action further downfield. How much will Maye change as a result? The other important note was that Maye was pressured 158 times, the most of any QB with 13 or fewer starts. This is relevant, not just because he was pressured, but because as I watched the season, the man got killed INSTANTLY on so many of those pressures. It’s not surprising at all that the Patriots were 31st in pass block win rate, nor is it a surprise that they were dead last in run block win rate. They looked that bad or worse. Is Maye going to get a clean pocket, and does he have tools to succeed in it? The final element to discuss is the scrambling: Maye finished with the 4th highest amount of scramble runs, behind just Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix, and Caleb Williams. He actually finished with the second most yards on scrambles, 407, just above Josh Allen of all people. That is certainly a thing. Maye looked excellent breaking the pocket and running with the ball. Now comes the real evaluation: with a more professional coaching staff, a better plan, and a better offensive line, can Maye be accurate? Ranking 27th in accuracy from a clean pocket, according to Warren Sharp, this will be the biggest question headed into 2025. The early returns from Week 1 weren’t all that special: he looked a bit like a rookie again, hesitating against the looks from the Raiders defense and taking some unnecessary scrambles as a result. For fans, the 10/15 for 153 yards on throws 10-19 yards down the field was very exciting: this is what Maye needs to be doing, and he looked his best doing it on back shoulder passes. With one very stupid INT and a few nice passes, Week 1 of Drake Maye seems to be 2024 Drake Maye.
Coaching
The Patriots 2024 staff attempted to bring continuity from the long dynasty of Bill Belichick into the season. They failed miserably. Here’s what I wrote of the fascinating 2024 transition away from Bill in my unpublished 2024 preview draft: “With the 4th worst offensive DVOA in football, the Patriots had the 9th best defensive DVOA in football. With injuries to their potential phenom rookie CB, frequent injuries to other DBs, and the loss of their best edge rusher, the goddamn New England Patriots were STILL TOP TEN in DVOA. Bill Belichick is a wizard. There’s no other explanation. A team of scotch tape, shit offense, lame duck tenures, and an owner who actively hated the product was still a top 10 defense. It boggles the mind. The NFL’s greatest ever defensive mind is gone, and beloved tough guy Jerod Mayo takes the reins. Mayo played for the Patriots during the dynasty, anchoring the inside from 2008 to 2015. In his best year, he had a Zach Thomas-esque 174 tackles. From Patriots contributor to new head coach, Mayo may be the most successful NFL player in the coaching ranks today. His hiring is a huge victory for former players, and Robert Kraft should be commended for sticking to the coaching plan. He also has the scariest job in football: maintaining the defense that Bill Belichick left you. So what do you believe? Do you believe Belichick is a product of incredibly savvy schemes that his assistants sponged up and innovated upon, and that the process can be replicated? Or do you believe that Belichick’s play calling savvy papers over all other variables in defense that have made it INCREDIBLY hard to sustain consistent defensive play? Defenses are not supposed to be consistent! The NFL is not supposed to see a team maintain at least top 10 play for two decades, especially not the modern NFL! Rather than predicting some kind of innovation or change to Mayo’s elevation, let’s leave it here: the man will try to do what his mentor did, and desperately avoid fucking anything up.” Mayo did, indeed, fuck it all up, falling from 9th to 30th in defensive DVOA. This is monumentally bad. The Patriots were 31st in pressure rate and 26th in yards per carry, so they were terrible upfront. They had fine counting stats in coverage because teams didn’t waste their time throwing, but efficiency was garbage. The aforementioned popgun offense in the Maye section says all you need to know about how things went on the other side of the ball. It was a disaster, unmitigated and probably unprecedented.
The Patriots ditched Mayo and Alex Van Pelt, going for perhaps the only more accomplished NFL player other than Mayo: Mike Vrabel. Vrabel enters his first year in New England with big plans for a team that featured a promising start from their highly valued QB and questions virtually everywhere else. He and the front office dived in with gusto, perhaps acquiring more quality players at needed positions than any other franchise. Need the run stopped? The Patriots return Christian Barmore and added star DT Milton Williams fresh off of a Super Bowl run, and even through the tough Robert Spillane. Need help at receiver? The Patriots added Stefon Diggs back to the AFC East to give them an instant #1 (Diggs is declining, but effective at getting open) and added Mack Hollins as an underrated big target as well. Offensive line a nightmare? Bookend tackles in top pick Will Campbell and the steady Morgan Moses. Secondary woes? Carlton Davis to go with Christian Gonzales. No explosives? TreVeyon Henderson’s lightning in a bottle from OSU’s National Championship team and the vertical separation of Kyle Williams. Edge rush problems? Familiar face Harold Landry brings toughness, if not production, to the squad. The Patriots got a total, targeted makeover, and it looks pretty professional. Vrabel’s defensive philosophy is clear: you stop the run first and foremost always. Vrabel’s tenure in Tennessee was about creating a defense that did just that, and according to the DVOA numbers, he finally did it right near the moment he was fired. The Titans ranked 1st and 10th in 2022 and 2023 in run defense DVOA, which coincided with some pretty bad defenses against the pass. Vrabel’s defensive track record is, put plainly, mixed given his reputation as a Patriots Hall of Fame LB. Part of the issue is a plain refusal to draft defensive talent in Tennessee: Vrabel’s 2023 draft class was fully offense on 6 picks, the 2022 featured 1 pick in the top 200 on defense, and only Jeffrey Simmons and Amani Hooker even reached second contracts on defense with the team over his 6 seasons as a head coach. What will Vrabel do with better personnel? Vrabel’s defenses have typically been a Best-Of of the other concepts around the league: FTN notes that he “disguises coverage, mixes coverage schemes based on opponent more than most, and simulates pressure more than he actually blitzes.” You could write this about the Fangio scheme, the MacDonald scheme, or most other successful defensive schemes. It’s probably worth noting here that Vrabel is not really a part of any major coaching tree: he went straight from football to Ohio State as a position coach, popped up as a position coach under Romeo Crennel (another 3-4 generalist), and got the Titans job off of some good Texans defenses of the mid-2010s. He does not call plays, and his new defensive coordinator Terrell Williams is also an accomplished position coach who did not call plays. It will be a mysterious defense in New England, with better personnel but little to suggest a full turnaround to the Belichick days. In the first game, the Raiders ran for just 56 yards on 24 carries, so the emphasis is paying off, and the Patriots added 4 sacks to that total.
Offensively, Josh McDaniels is BACK BABY! It is his third stint in New England, and the Canton McKinley grad returns after a year away from the stench of failure, same as his last return. This time, his rehabilitation tour included a road trip around the NFL and college teams to figure out how to simplify his offense and add new concepts. As the zone revolution in the NFL starts to fade after its popularization by the Shanahan Boys (McVay, famously, has gone back to an old-school gap run scheme with Matt Stafford and co.) It may be time for McDaniels to bring back the hits as the league starts to turn this way! Tom Brady won’t be showing up and Drake Maye is, as discussed, kind of nuts, so it’s on McDaniels to show his tour actually works to make him a good communicator for his Gen Z YOLO QB. The offense needs offensive linemen with heavy hands who hit their assignments, and the Patriots have improved there. It will also benefit from strong play action concepts, and that is bolstered by the explosive and talented Treyveon Henderson to pair with Rhamondre Stevenson. Maye will also be under center much more than before, as McDaniels ran nearly half of his plays with Carr from under center last time he was at the helm. It’s a totally new, and totally professional, plan for offense with a truly young core outside of veteran Stefon Diggs. Will it look good immediately? Absolutely not. But the players worth investing in are on the roster, and the talent level for both Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels are passable for a season in which their coaching can make a difference.
Offense
Both the WRs and OL for the Patriots were awful last year. Point blank, period. They were not talented. They were not interesting. They were not productive. They were somehow both old and inexperienced, somehow both weak and slow. There was no rhyme or reason to how poorly this team was put together. As such, 2025 is going to look good no matter the results. The first task for the team was to rebuild the run game, a Vrabel team staple, by totally remaking the offensive line. First, the Patriots spent their first round pick on Will Campbell, a pass blocking specialist from LSU. The fans are concerned, both from OL scars and for his short arms that he appears to have stretched to artificially lengthen during the combine (lol). The T-Rex Tackle may be a little short and stumpy, but he also put together a combine that featured incredible speed and explosion on the leaping test. Campbell could be an All-World Guard if this tackle thing doesn’t work out, and Vrabel unsurprisingly wanted a guy you could see anywhere to start the OL rebuild. The interior line is a bit more unsettled: Cole Strange, Caedan Wallace, Ben Brown, and Jared Wilson have all gotten a shot at LG, with Wilson getting the nod. Strange was absolutely abysmal after being a shocking 1st round pick in 2022 (most teams had him as an intriguing Day 3 pick). The Patriots thought they had Logan Mankins, but instead have a player who blew out a knee and promptly delivered unplayable football. He is now cut and a Dolphin lol. Jared Wilson is a Georgia Bulldog which means he is gigantic, and he was perhaps even more athletic than Campbell. The guy runs an insane 4.84 40 with 311 pounds on him. He was a center for Georgia but, as we said, the idea is the best five linemen at any position. Center and RT are both positions manned by capable vets: Garrett Bradbury has always been a solid run blocker, and got his pass protection to less embarrassing levels after tough years early in his career. He isn’t the first rounder Minnesota thought they had in 2019, but he has mostly shed the bust label a la Austin Jackson. At RT, Morgan Moses enters his age 34 season after a year with the Jets where he didn’t look nearly as ferocious as he once did in the run game, but he’s just two years removed from being a key piece in Baltimore’s lethal run game. He also was far better pass protecting for Aaron Rodgers. He’s clearly the graybeard a Pats line needs, even if his position is short-term. The final veteran piece, Mike Onwenu appears to be doing enough to get one more shot in New England. The Patriots have to figure out what they have in him after he signed a 3-year, $57 million dollar deal before last year. He delivered a dud of a year as the best player on a bad offensive line. Onwenu is not nearly the athlete Vrabel showed he covets, and the Patriots can get out of the deal at the end of the season. This is an offensive line with three vets (all with some good history) and 2 top 100 picks. Not a bad setup!
At the skill positions, the Patriots still have some interesting players to go along with an emphasis on explosiveness. RB is a fun place to start, with OSU rookie TreVeyon Henderson pairing with Rhamondre Stevenson in the backfield. Henderson is one of my favorite rookies from this class: as a true freshman at Ohio State, Henderson ripped off 1248 yards and scored 19 TDs, looking like the future of football. Injuries the next two years led OSU to court backfield partner Quinshon Judkins, and the National Championship runners each got 1000 last year. Henderson is the better player: smooth as a receiver, 4.4 speed, a bonafide freight train once he gets downhill, and a decent guy by all accounts to boot. The team that drafted Henderson was guaranteed a new fan favorite. His first touch in the pros was a preseason opening kick return TD, he scored again pushing past bad line play to turn a 4 yard loss into an 8 yard TD. The kid is just great. His pairing with Stevenson is interesting: Stevenson has worn out his welcome in New England after failing to build on his first 1000 yard season in 2022. Injuries and fumble issues kept him sidelined for much of the past two years, and his play as a receiver offered little to excite fans. In 2022, he broke off 16 runs of more than 15 yards, but had just 10 in the last two seasons. Did OL destruction break Stevenson? Like Onwenu, Stevenson signed a nice deal before 2024 before he did not prove to be part of the team’s solutions: the team can save $4 million by cutting him next year. Stevenson has proven to be a good downhill runner, with 41 missed tackles forced and always hovering near 3 yards after contact (a modest number, but good for league average). At receiver, the Patriots retain just one guy who is expected to get substantial time: DeMario “Pop” Douglas. Douglas didn’t do too much in the explosive front (no one did) in 2024, but he had plenty of juice with the ball in his hands. He spent 80% of his time in the slot (at 5’8”, that is the right call) and got 5.6 yards of YAC per catch, good for 23rd of 110 qualifiers. Douglas shows off better on tape, when you see his small frame pinball around, than he does in the counting metrics. With some injuries on the team, Kayshon Boutte from LSU also figures into the equation: the former 6th round pick is just 5’11” and about 200 pounds, but he seems bigger when you see how large his catch radius is. Boutte was a Bills killer last year, logging 12 catches for 212 yards and 2 TDs in the two games against them. He was Maye’s favorite target downfield, and logged 103 yards on 6 catches last week. The two newcomers who might supplant Boutte are Stefon Diggs and Mack Hollins. Hollins, of costuming and barefoot fame, was fine in Buffalo last year, with his best game coming against the Chiefs as he got 3 catches for 73 and a TD. Hollins is a good field-stretcher and, despite never quite cracking a major starting lineup, has a nose for the endzone and is a quality special teams player. Diggs was a bonafide monster, one of the league’s best, before a noisy hold-in in Buffalo got him shuttled over to Houston last year. Before tearing his ACL in Week 8, Diggs was on pace for another 100 catch year despite posting his lowest yards per route run number since 2018. Diggs was interestingly used in the slot more than out wide, which broke from nearly a decade of precedent. The new Stefon Diggs may not seem as explosive compared to the past, but he still posted a QB rating of 108 when targeted, which is still very helpful to a QB. He played most of Week 1 out wide. Kyle Williams is the last receiver of note: Williams is a 3rd round pick with explosive speed who looks to be a major upgrade over Boutte. With 14 TDs in 2024, Williams was a true weapon with an ability to separate deep with awesome routes. He’ll astound with a deep TD or two provided he can stay healthy; he was knocked out with a concussion in preseason on a hospital ball from Josh Dobbs. He started with just 5 snaps last week, so he needs more time. Hunter Henry returns after last year as the 6th best TE receiver by yards in the NFL. He only scored 2 TDs, which was a major step back from 2023’s 6 scores. Henry has dropped 6 passes over the last three years and has snagged more than half of his contested targets in 7 of the last 8 years. Henry will never be mistaken for a blocker, so the Pats will employ Austin Hooper to do that task.
Defense
Like last week’s matchup, the interior defensive line will be a chore for Miami, and will make running the ball a clear challenge. Milton Williams and Christian Barmore have played the position near the top of the league the last time we saw them: Milton Williams put up 40 pressures in 500 snaps for the Eagles, serving as a pass rushing specialist on just 500 total snaps. Williams and Jalen Carter combined for 36 pressures on the Eagles DL in the playoffs. Will he still be able to produce without his ascending running mate? Christian Barmore is certainly a good one: he missed most of 2024 with blood clots, coming back before two games before shutting it down due to recurring symptoms. Barmore is ready to go this year, and in 2023, he was sensational with 49 pressures and 40 run stops, which was good for 4th in the league. Folks forget how good Barmore is, and Mike Vrabel may not have ever had a pair of run-stuffing IDLs this good. Khyiris Tonga, a 338-pound pure nose tackle, was signed from Arizona to be the tough-guy nose tackle in base fronts, and he’s fine enough with two great run stops last week. At edge, the Patriots no longer have a strength where they once always seemed to. Keion White will get the next chance to take a big step forward: he had 45 pressures and 5 sacks in his sophomore campaign after a relatively quiet season as a 2nd round rookie. White struggles a bit more as a run defender, and will need to build strength as the edge setter, as the terrible Patriots run defense happened on his watch. He is currently the rotational edge. Harold Landry, an edge Mike Vrabel once rewarded with a 5 year, $87.5 extension before the Titans cut bait just 3 years in, was signed for shockingly big money. Landry had a one-year wonder type season in his contract year in 2021 with 64 pressures, but got just 47 and 30 in the next two seasons he played. Despite really low pressure numbers, Landry somehow always gets sacks: 12 in 2022, 10.5 in 2023, and 9 in 2024. 9 sacks on 30 pressures! Wildly lucky. Since his early days as an undersized 252 pound player, he has gotten better as a run defender. Counting stats portray Landry as better than he is, and edge remains a concern for next year. I write this, but Landry looked like a superstar in Week 1: he had 2.5 sacks on 8 pressures against second-year pro DJ Glaze. K’Lavon Chaisson got the starting nod against his former team, and managed 2 pressures of his own. Chaisson is a former 2020 draft bust selected by the Jaguars, who never got him going. At 245, he’s undersized and a weak run defender. In the middle as LBs, the Patriots have three capable players: Christian Elliss looked solid after the Patriots poached him from the Eagles (4 pass breakups, 17 runs stops on 514 snaps), Robert Spillane was signed in free agency after proving to be a star run defender in Vegas, and Jahlani Tavai was bad last year but previously looked like a rising star in the league. I would count Tavai with Stevenson and Onwenu as 2024 extensions that are now playing for their job, but he went on IR so it looks over. Spillane and Elliss were pretty awful in Week 1, each missing 3 tackles and allowing every throw in their area to be caught. Both looked fast, but fundamentals were lacking.
The Patriots seemed poised to return a lot of the same secondary, but had a late makeover: Carlton Davis III was signed from Detroit after a plus career in Tampa. Davis is pesky against run concepts (a theme for Mike Vrabel) and consistently beats on receivers in the pass game. Detroit loved him for his 2 INTs, 6 breakups, and 87.9 QB rating allowed, but they loved his 21 run stops on just 697 snaps all the more. But the Lions took a risk on him after a decline season in 2023 and simply couldn’t afford to pay him after a jaw injury took him out after Week 15. Injuries are the only issue for the twitchy corner, and he is just 28-years-old despite a long career. He would play across from just about the only successful Patriots draft pick in 5 years, Christian Gonzalez, but Gonzalez is out for Sunday. Gonzalez missed much of the lost 2023 campaign with a knee injury, but picked up right where he left off last year. In 2023, he allowed a 67.5 QB rating on limited snaps, but with a full complement last year, he STILL allowed 70.5, with 7 pass breakups and 2 INTs. He let just 46 of his 84 targets be got. That is a man who fully erases his side of the field. Gonzalez and Davis make for great bookends when Gonzalez is healthy. Former Bills 7th rounder Alex Austin went in place of Gonzalez, and performed admirably. He is likely to be a weak link as time goes on. 2022 3rd round pick Marcus Jones will look to continue solid tackling work from the nickel position in a contract year: he also held opposing QBs under 100 in rating, and his work erasing Miami’s run game led to a career high 8 tackles against them in Week 12. He ended the last two seasons on IR, which is a concern for the 5’8”, 188-pound CB. You simply have to love the speed and toughness you see when he does play. The safeties are now Craig Woodson and Jaylinn Hawkins, as Kyle Dugger is the final man signed to a 2024 extension yet offered a poor year in 2024. The 29-year-old Swiss Army Knife was basically unplayable last year, allowing a near perfect QB rating (143.1) on 759 snaps. There’s little explanation for this: he has an ankle injury, but Vrabel indicated to the media that he doesn’t seem to understand the coverages that he has been assigned. The Patriots have instead tried Jaylinn Hawkins at the spot, but the former Falcons 4th rounder has never played particularly good football and looked confused on the Raiders long TD last week. Dugger seems to be worth banking on, but we’re in Culture Reset territory now, so he got 7 snaps. Jabrill Peppers is somehow not yet 30 despite entering the league in 2017, but he continued to be fabulous. Peppers was an absolute freak in college, getting snaps at RB, WR, S, and returning all punts and kicks. He had a tough freshman campaign on the 0-16 Browns before returning to form and getting sent to the Giants as part of the Odell blockbuster of 2019. Peppers languished with the poor coaching there, finally joining the Patriots on a near minimum deal before exploding with insanely precise tackling and sticky coverage. Peppers ERASED TEs and WRs in 2023 and 2024, with a QB rating allowed of 52.6 in 955 snaps in 2023 and an insane 39.2 in 2024. Last year brought back old character concerns, as a domestic violence arrest led to time on the Commissioner’s Exempt List, and he returned out of shape, getting a quick hamstring injury. It is worth noting that he was acquitted of all charges in January, but the Patriots still made him a late cut. Craig Woodson, the Patriots 4th round pick this year, earned the starting nod and was actually excellent: his 8 tackles were second on the team, and he allowed just 6 passing yards in his zone. It’s an intriguing, if slapped together, secondary, and with a slapped together secondary of our own, I’d give anything to just call them intriguing.
Special Teams
The Patriots employed Joey Slye for kicking duties last year, but spent a draft pick on University of Miami kicker Andy Borregales, a Venezuelan kicker (moved to the US when he was 1) who wears dangly earrings and hit a bomb from 56 last year in a 18/19 season. Ice water in this kid’s veins, he’s quite good. Nerves took his first kick left, but he hit the next 2 from 40 and under. Bryce Baringer returns after also being drafted in 2023, a rarity for kick guys. He improved his punt average from 46.9 to 49.8 last year, got a better percentage inside the 20, and even buffed up his hangtime. PFF had him as the 11th best punter, and I’m inclined to agree: two very professional kick dudes. Brandon Schooler gets a shout-out as we talk about special teams: he’s the guy who blocked two Sanders kicks by timing the snap count in 2023 and got another blocked punt in 2024 against Miami. So happy Danny Crossman was fired. Schooler is one of the best special teams players in the league, the Pats always have that type of guy. Marcus Jones handles the punts and, with 14.8 yards per return, he was 4th in the league among qualifiers. The Patriots tend to let backup RBs take kick return duties (Antonio Gibson and Henderson), and TreVeyon took his first attempt to the house in preseason. A more explosive Patriots team should be watched on special teams, even if Miami poached Vrabel’s long-time special teams coach.
Game Prediction
I cannot in good conscience pick the Miami Dolphins to win a football game against almost anyone in the league after the nightmare I witnessed last week. The Dolphins were horrible against the Colts on both sides of the ball, absolutely nerfing the team with poor communication and execution. If they made a plan for the week, it did not appear at any given point. Against the team I described above as professional, Miami is perhaps at their weakest. It’s a scary, scary time to be a fan. Let’s recap the key matchups from the Colts game:
- The Dolphins edge rushers vs Colts Tackles: L. No pressures, worst distance to QB when he threw it in the league.
- Dolphins find explosives in pass and run game: 2 plays over 20 yards, both coming while down 23-0 then 30-0.
- Will Daniel Jones, be able to keep up a solid rate of explosive plays against Miami? Yes. 8 passes for 15 or more yards, two runs for the same.
- Is Miami physical enough with their new offensive and defensive interior to win some battles upfront, or is it another year of Miami being pushed around? Pushed around. Miami’s OL didn’t pick up blitzes you expect high schoolers to identify, the QB was instantly rattled, the defense never had a prayer while getting picked apart.
So, you know, yeah. It’s bad. Every single number is insane. They allowed the Colts to go 3/3 on 4th down. They start the year with a -3 turnover differential. They brought up a kicker and didn’t even kick an extra point. They ran 46 offensive plays to the Colts 70. They nearly got lapped in total yards, allowing more than 6 yards per play. The QB looked lost. This. Team. Sucked.
So how do they beat the Patriots? The Patriots have to suck, and they have to suck bad. Maye needs to get confused by defensive basics, start scrambling into sacks, and the team has to rack up penalties. Elliss and Spillane have to make that slight tendency to overrun and miss tackles into a habit. The new secondary pieces have to get hypnotized. The Patriots will lose more football games because the pieces are young and raw. The Dolphins have to be grown-ups, instead of the 36-year-old slacker getting stoned in Mom’s basement like they showed during the Colts game. At least they can model the bong rips fans will need to get through this season if it all goes to hell. I won’t bother with matchups to watch: you can see the Patriots are a team with some talent at the defensive line, and some pieces everywhere else. Simply. Win. Whoever looks good can be featured in an all-nighter I pull to get ready for my Buffalo preview. None of you are worth my time until then.
Patriots 13-10 because I don’t respect ANY OF YOU AT ALL!!!!!
Season Record: 0-1
