The New England Patriots will play in the Super Bowl tonight. Stop me if you’ve heard that before.
I genuinely can’t imagine how my friends that aren’t Boston sports fans do it. How do you deal with someone who cheers for teams that seemingly don’t rebuild, don’t take gap years, and whose version of disappointment usually involves falling short on the biggest stages? That disappointment itself is a luxury. Most fanbases would kill just to be relevant long enough to be crushed that way.
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And yet, here we are again.
The Patriots are playing in Super Bowl LX in Mike Vrabel’s first season as head coach. The Celtics are near the top of the East despite reshuffling roles, missing stars, and redefining themselves in real time. None of the success feels frantic or accidental. Like clockwork, Boston simply continues to win.
DENVER, CO – JANUARY 25: New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye (10) and head coach Mike Vrabel celebrate after a win against the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game at Empower Field at Mile High on January 25, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) | Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
That’s the part worth paying attention to. Because this isn’t about luck, or magic, or Boston mystique. It’s about something much more repeatable: identity, clarity, and leadership that knows how to survive discomfort.
Joe Mazzulla noticed it immediately with Mike Vrabel.
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“I think when you just take a look at it, they’re a team that’s developed an identity over the course of the season,” Mazzulla said of the Patriots after they clinched their Super Bowl berth. “Every coach, regardless of the sport, is looking for that — creating that type of identity and consistency, and playing to that throughout an entire season.”
He could have been talking about his own team. When you strip them down to their nuts and bolts, the Celtics and Patriots are largely building the same thing. They’re just doing it in their own ways.
Foxborough, MA – July 30: New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla and Mazzulla’s stepson Michael Harden arrive for Patriots training camp at Gillette Stadium on July 30, 2025. (Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) | Boston Globe via Getty Images
Identity shows up before the results do
The Patriots didn’t make Super Bowl LX by reinventing themselves between Week 1 and now. They just figured out who they were early on and leaned harder into that week after week.
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Close games. Defensive discipline. Playing ugly without apologizing for it.
The Celtics have followed a similar blueprint. Lineups have been changing nightly. Roles expanding and contracting like a living organism. Yet the structure has held. Decisions are still clean. That kind of consistency doesn’t come from talent alone, but rather a coach who cares more about how five guys function together than who gets credit for it.
Mazzulla has been open about what he values when things get uncomfortable.
“The togetherness stood out,” he said after a recent upset win over the Houston Rockets. “That s*** matters. The ability for us to stick together whether it’s perfect or not, is important.”
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That soundbite does more than just describe how the Patriots and Celtics are operating. It says something about how Boston itself operates.
BOSTON, MA – JUNE 21: Derrick White #9, Al Horford #42, Jayson Tatum #0, Jaylen Brown #7, Kristaps Porzingis #8, and Jrue Holiday #4 of the Boston Celtics pose for a photo with the Larry O’Brien Trophy and the Bill Russell Finals MVP Trophy before the 2024 Boston Celtics championship parade on June 21, 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2024 NBAE (Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images) | NBAE via Getty Images
As a Boston fan, there’s no expectation of approval from the outside. At least there hasn’t been in my lifetime. When the Patriots make the Super Bowl, the path was soft. If you ask a Lakers fan, they’ll tell you the Celtics benefitted from an injury-plagued playoff run en route to Banner 18 — which is funny, because if Boston doesn’t beat Dallas in 2024, Nico Harrison probably never starts staring at Luka’s midsection long enough to pick up the phone and call Rob Pelinka. So really, you’re welcome, Lakers fans.
What the Celtics and Patriots have done instead is lean inward. Trust the locker room. Trust the structure. I almost walked into “Trust the Process,” but caught myself.
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Trust has been explicit from both coaches all season. Mazzulla has said it out loud, and the Patriots turned it into a slogan: We all we got. We all we need.
Neither group has been perfect. Both have had to adjust on the fly. But the through line has been belief in each other and a refusal to fracture when things get uncomfortable. In Boston, that mindset isn’t new. And it travels just as well from the locker room to the fanbase.
Vrabel and Mazzulla aren’t similar, but they’re aligned
Mike Vrabel and Joe Mazzulla are….different. If they were to sit next to each other on a long flight, I think Joe would be headphones in with The Town on before takeoff.
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But listen to how they talk about leadership, and the similarities between them becomes obvious.
“Joe is fantastic,” Vrabel said last summer. “He’s always trying to learn and gain knowledge different ways — about building a team, about strategy, about scheme, about inspiring players to do their job well. So I always love my conversations with him.”
That curiosity matters. So does the emphasis on responsibility.
Mazzulla echoed that sentiment when Vrabel attended a Celtics practice earlier this season.
“There’s got to be communication and understanding,” Mazzulla said. “We’re all carrying a responsibility to compete at a high level and bring championships to this city. So you’ve got to learn from each other and have that perspective.”
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Neither coach talks first about stars. They talk about standards, roles, and people knowing exactly why they’re there.
That’s how you survive a season in Boston when nothing goes according to plan.
Vrabel and Mazzulla don’t talk about winning as something you chase. They talk about it as something you arrive at together.
That shared language explains why this all feels so familiar in Boston. Coaches arrive, systems settle, expectations snap back into place. The Patriots went from irrelevance (and the occasional Lunatic Lateral) to the Super Bowl in one year. The Celtics are contending while redefining themselves in real time.
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I think I always knew it deep down, but I’m starting to accept why this all feels unbearable from the outside — and like just another February in Boston for those of us on the inside.