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Could the Patriots be next year’s Commanders?
Under new head coach Mike Vrabel, the Patriots could make some surprising improvements in 2025.
Will the Patriots go worst-to-first next season? Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves; after all, this season hasn’t even ended yet.
But one of New England’s inspirations for accomplishing that goal, the Washington Commanders, will play for the right to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl after finishing worse than the Patriots in the 2023 season. So anything is possible.
Color Brian Hoyer impressed.
“It’s amazing to see how you can turn an NFL team around so quickly. It’s pretty impressive. A new head coach, a rookie quarterback, and honestly not a lot of big-name guys. It’s a team who’s playing together. They signed some quality veteran guys that probably helped establish that culture, guys who had played under Dan Quinn before. It’s been a lot of fun to watch,” the former Patriots QB said on Episode 23 of “The Quick Snap” podcast.
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Few expected much from the Commanders in 2024 after they hired Dan Quinn — who once led the Atlanta Falcons to the Super Bowl but wasn’t the flashy hire many wanted — and drafted Jayden Daniels No. 2 overall last offseason without much around him aside from receiver Terry McLaurin.
Fast-forward to now, and Daniels has had one of the — if not the — greatest seasons ever by a rookie QB. The 12-5 Commanders slew the No. 1 seed Detroit Lions in the Divisional Round last weekend to set up a date with the division rival Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship. The two teams split their season series with Commanders, winning their most recent matchup in Week 16.
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It’s not hard to see the blueprint for the Patriots to do something similar in 2025.
New England opted for experience and overall leadership at the head coaching position over offensive play-calling, choosing ex-Titans coach and Patriots linebacker Mike Vrabel to run their operation over highly touted Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. (Funny story: the Commanders reportedly wanted to hire Johnson last year but pivoted to Quinn when Johnson pulled his name from consideration. Looks like it worked out for them.)
They have a ton of money to spend on free agents and potential trades, as well as the No. 4 overall pick in this year’s draft.
Oh, and they have their own young star at QB in Drake Maye, who was taken right behind Daniels in the 2024 NFL Draft and lived up to the hype despite a poor situation around him. They also just hired old friend Josh McDaniels, an established offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach with the Patriots, to oversee his development.
But the key to getting the Patriots back on a winning path isn’t just talent or scheme. It’s about getting the “right” players in the building to rebuild a culture that has faltered the last few seasons and minimizing killer mistakes that lose football games.
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“When you hear Vrabel say, ‘We just want to be good enough to take advantage of bad football,’ it’s a really good way to look at it. If you’re good enough and you aren’t making the mistakes and the other team is, you’ve already given yourself a much better chance of winning the games,” Hoyer explained.
“Bill [Belichick] would sit there and tell us all the time that nothing correlates more to winning and losing — first, he’d talk about points, which is obvious, but “2” would always be turnover margin.”
To that point, the Commanders went from the worst turnover margin in the league in 2023 (-14) to 15th (+1) in 2024. Similarly, the Houston Texans, who have now made the playoffs two years in a row after finishing 3-13-1 in 2022, jumped from 19th in turnover margin (-1) to eighth in 2023 and 2024 (+10, +9).
The Patriots, meanwhile, have been -11 the last two years (30th in 2023, 28th in 2024) and have won just eight games combined in those two campaigns.
Hopefully, Vrabel’s goal to win more games by simply not losing them (and taking advantage of other teams’ mistakes) vaults the Patriots immediately into a more competitive space next year.
Once they do that, we’ll see if an improved roster and an ascending Maye can take them even further.
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