rumored for some time now<\/a>. However, no stone will be left unturned in order to add to New England\u2019s offensive fire power after it was exposed in the playoffs.<\/p>\n\u201cWe didn\u2019t consistently do enough, I thought. There were times where we did and we weren\u2019t able to sustain,\u201d said Vrabel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll have to go back and understand that to put yourself in those positions and ultimately win a championship, you\u2019re going to have to beat good defenses, whether that\u2019s at home or on the road or whatever that is. So, the consistency of it, the ability to create some X-plays \u2014 it\u2019s hard to drive the ball 10 or 12 plays and you have to be better, improve the details and improve the execution. We\u2019re all involved in it. From the coaching to the playing, it\u2019s on us all. And that\u2019ll be our challenge going forward. Yeah, we had success and there were some really good performances, but the margin for error when you get into January really shrinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did you know that the first play of the Mike Vrabel tenure ended in a touchdown? Sure, it was preseason, but TreVeyon Henderson\u2019s 100-yard runback of the opening kickoff against the Washington Commanders was still a positive start to the exhibition schedule.<\/p>\n
For the Patriots, however, it was not a sign of things to come. Yes, they found some success early in the season running back kickoffs, but after Antonio Gibson sustained a season-ending ACL tear in Week 5, the team\u2019s ability to return kicks was diminished.<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, Eliot Wolf sees some potential to get better in this area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s an area that we could certainly improve,\u201d he acknowledged. \u201cI know TreVeyon had the one in the preseason and then, he was doing it a little bit. As we adjust and every team adjusts to the new rules, different things like our blocking needs to kick up a notch. I think part of that would be have an explosive returner that can be back there. Really, once Antonio got hurt that really set us back in that area. We\u2019ll look to try to improve that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Patriots finished the season ranked 19th in the NFL in kickoff return average, but their production dropped off after Gibson went down. He had averaged 28.5 yards per runback and scored a touchdown in Week 2; the six other returners used, averaged only 24.6 yards on their return attempts without finding the end zone.<\/p>\n
The Patriots defense was one of the most disruptive units in the NFL playoffs and capable to make life hard on opposing quarterbacks throughout the tournament. However, it had to rely on blitz packages and pressure looks to get the job done; unlike the eventual Super Bowl-winning Seahawks, New England was not able to consistently generate pressure with only four players.<\/p>\n
The main reason for that was uneven play on the defensive edge. Unsurprisingly, it s something the Patriots know they need to improve in 2026.<\/p>\n
Luckily for them, the draft offers plenty of viable options.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this draft offers a lot of different depth at varying areas, edge being one of them,\u201d said Eliot Wolf. \u201cI think it\u2019s a fairly deep class at that position that\u2019s obviously an area of need for our team, so it matches up nicely.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Patriots are entering the offseason with questions on the edge that go beyond the 2025 performance. Sack leader K\u2019Lavon Chaisson is an unrestricted free agent, while fellow starter Harold Landry had a limited impact down the stretch because of a nagging knee injury. Given those circumstances, the team is in the market for some edge help both in free agency and further down the line in the draft.<\/p>\n
The Patriots morphed into a physical football team in the playoffs, at least on one side of the ball. While their defense was playing bully ball in the tournament, the offense \u2014 as noted above \u2014 was unable to follow suit.<\/p>\n
For the team\u2019s head coach, one of the issues was team strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to get stronger,\u201d he said in Indianapolis. \u201cWhen you have a young football team you have to understand that this is a grown-man sport. There are a bunch of big men out there playing this game, and so I want to make sure that our players understand how important their physical development is. They may be skilled, but we have some guys on our team \u2014 everybody\u2019s at a different level, where one player is at 12 years into his career and another player is in his second year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vrabel used a former teammate of his as an example of players actively getting stronger and transforming their body to maximize their abilities to compete.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s what I always say: nobody talks about Tom Brady in 2001 in 2000 and how he changed his body and he maximized his god-given genetic ability,\u201d he recalled. \u201cEverybody talks about TB12 and the pliability. They don\u2019t talk about how hard he worked in the weight room and how he lifted with the tight ends and the linebackers and he squatted and he hanged clean and he did all those things to make his body the best that it could be for him to to play quarterback and to compete once his opportunity came.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom Brady\u2019s development is unparalleled in NFL history, but Vrabel\u2019s point still stands. His team needs to put the work in if it wants to reach a championship level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even though the final game left a bitter taste in their mouths, the New England Patriots have plenty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52113,4834,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-780160","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-new-england","10":"tag-new-england-patriots","11":"tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","12":"tag-new-england-patriots-offseason-coverage","13":"tag-newengland","14":"tag-newenglandpatriots","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116143380636253449","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780160","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=780160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}