release of long snapper Joe Cardona<\/a>, the Patriots do not currently have a Super Bowl champion on the roster. While there\u2019s shades of New England\u2019s championship history with Vrabel, it\u2019s a totally clean slate on the roster than can build a new culture from the ground floor.<\/p>\nNew England particularly faltered in 2024 from insufficient situational football, a continued lack of explosiveness on offense and a concerning regression from a once-capable defense. <\/p>\n
Vrabel\u2019s staff will reinstitute the wits that the roster needs to turn games into wins. TreVeyon Henderson and Kyle Williams are game-breakers with their speed on offense and can be the weapons the Patriots have needed for nearly six years running. They\u2019ll each help Drake Maye along with an established No. 1 receiver in Stefon Diggs. The defense has a new identity with additions in Robert Spillane, Milton Williams, Harold Landry and Carlton Davis in free agency. Draftees such as Joshua Farmer will develop behind them to continue a talent movement on that side of the football. <\/p>\n
Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n
The Patriots enter the 2025 season with a last-place schedule, plenty of winnable games, more talent and a conference that could beat up on each other enough to give New England a path to the final playoff spot.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Los Angeles Chargers, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Denver Broncos took the three AFC wild-card spots<\/a> last season. It\u2019s not to say the Patriots are now better than those three teams, but a revamped roster and new culture certainly give Vrabel the opportunity to force New England back into the competitive class of the NFL. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots can totally be the No. 7 seed in the 2025 NFL season. The roster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,6308,1167,249,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-11327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nesn-select","10":"tag-new-england","11":"tag-new-england-patriots","12":"tag-newengland","13":"tag-newenglandpatriots","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114424578266469157","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}