{"id":855781,"date":"2026-04-05T21:26:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T21:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/855781\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T21:26:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T21:26:34","slug":"running-game-is-one-of-the-key-areas-to-improve-for-mike-vrabel-on-the-patriots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/855781\/","title":{"rendered":"Running game is one of the key areas to improve for Mike Vrabel on the Patriots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/bolavip.com\/en\/topic\/new-england-patriots\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"break-word text-(--theme-primary-color) hover:text-(--theme-text-color) hover:bg-(--theme-primary-color) cursor-pointer font-bold border-b-(length:--theme-border-width) border-b-(--theme-border-color)\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New England Patriots<\/a> are one of the two most recent Super Bowl finalists. Despite this, coach Mike Vrabel knows they can do much more in a key area: the rushing attack.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">\u201cWe want to be more consistent running the football,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/bolavip.com\/en\/topic\/mike-vrabel\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"break-word text-(--theme-primary-color) hover:text-(--theme-text-color) hover:bg-(--theme-primary-color) cursor-pointer font-bold border-b-(length:--theme-border-width) border-b-(--theme-border-color)\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Vrabel<\/a> said, per MassLive\u2019s Karen Guregian. \u201cThis isn\u2019t like we\u2019re going to run it every single play. It\u2019s just that I felt like there were too many times where we wanted to run it, and it was just inefficient. <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">\u201cNow we popped some, which was great. We had some explosives. \u2026 But I want to be able to do it more consistently to allow for some of the run actions in the passing game to really come alive. It\u2019s a tough league if you have to sit there and drop back and throw the football as much as we did in the last game of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">The Patriots were sixth in rushing yards in the regular season and ranked 13th in yards per attempt. Definitely, Vrabel will have a lot of work ahead if he wants to improve these statistics.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/mike-vrabel-13-1920x1080.webp.webp\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" alt=\"Mike Vrabel\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-5 text-center text-(length:--theme-text-size)\" style=\"--theme-text-size:14px\">Mike Vrabel of the New England Patriots.<\/p>\n<p>Two key rushers for New England<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">In the 2025 season, the Patriots\u2019 backfield was led by the duo of Rhamondre Stevenson and rookie TreVeyon Henderson. Stevenson concluded the regular season with 603 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns on 130 carries, while also proving his versatility with 345 receiving yards and 2 scores. <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">Meanwhile, Henderson made an immediate impact by tallying 911 rushing yards and 9 touchdowns on 180 attempts, adding 221 yards through the air. Despite a dominant 14-3 record and a Super Bowl LX appearance, Vrabel demanded even greater efficiency from his ground game to ensure New England remain the AFC\u2019s physical benchmark in 2026.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/rhamondre-stevenson-1-1920x1080.webp.webp\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" alt=\"Rhamondre Stevenson\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-5 text-center text-(length:--theme-text-size)\" style=\"--theme-text-size:14px\">Drake Maye hands off to Rhamondre Stevenson.<\/p>\n<p>Opportunities to strengthen the Patriots\u2019 backfield<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">With the goal of once again winning the AFC East and returning to the Super Bowl for revenge, the New England Patriots will have 11 opportunities in the upcoming draft to continue strengthening their roster:<\/p>\n<p>Round 1: Pick 31Round 2: Pick 63Round 3: Pick 95Round 4: Pick 125Round 4: Pick 131Round 5: Pick 171Round 6: Pick 191Round 6: Pick 198Round 6: Pick 202Round 6: Pick 212Round 7: Pick 247<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-[5px] w-full md:mb-[11px]\">SurveyDo you agree with Vrabel that the running game still needs to improve even more?<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-[9px] block text-(length:--theme-text-size) font-bold md:hidden\" style=\"--theme-text-size:18px\">Do you agree with Vrabel that the running game still needs to improve even more?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots are one of the two most recent Super Bowl finalists. Despite this, coach Mike&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,838,1167,249,2326,2094,6,115210,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-855781","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-mike-vrabel","10":"tag-new-england","11":"tag-new-england-patriots","12":"tag-newengland","13":"tag-newenglandpatriots","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-nomsn","16":"tag-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116354221371651649","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855781","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=855781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}