Pro Football Focus<\/a> identified \u201cone reason for optimism for every team ahead of the 2025 NFL season.\u201d For the Patriots, that reason was the defense. <\/p>\n\u201cThe Patriots have the makings of a potentially dangerous defense,\u201d Wasserman wrote. \u201cThey handed out a huge contract to former Eagles defensive tackle\u00a0Milton Williams, who led all interior defenders with a 91.7 PFF pass-rush grade last season. New linebacker\u00a0Robert Spillane\u00a0placed sixth at his position with an 87.3 PFF run-defense grade.\u00a0Carlton Davis III\u00a0could form one of the league\u2019s best cornerback duos with\u00a0Christian Gonzalez.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrow in playmakers such as\u00a0Christian Barmore,\u00a0Keion White\u00a0and\u00a0Marcus Jones, and the Patriots could have one of the NFL\u2019s emerging defenses this season under head coach Mike Vrabel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n
In the 2024 season, the Patriots had one of the worst defenses in the league, struggling with both the pass rush and run defense. So, it was clear something needed to change.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With Vrabel, he had experience leading a team in this league and had the connections to bring some talented players to New England. <\/p>\n
This defense could be dangerous this season, and it should be fun to watch. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots look a lot different heading into the 2025 season. The organization hired Mike Vrabel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[11815,7888,6032,7,7900,7885,838,7891,1167,249,2326,2094,6,208,9591],"class_list":{"0":"post-136062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-carlton-davis","9":"tag-christian-barmore","10":"tag-christian-gonzalez","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-keion-white","13":"tag-marcus-jones","14":"tag-mike-vrabel","15":"tag-milton-williams","16":"tag-new-england","17":"tag-new-england-patriots","18":"tag-newengland","19":"tag-newenglandpatriots","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-patriots","22":"tag-robert-spillane"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114696719374414728","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136062","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=136062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}