Tony Romo sees Patriots ‘turning around very fast’ under Mike Vrabel in 2025
"Don’t be surprised if they have a really good season this year."
When Tony Romo began his broadcasting career with CBS, he made a name for himself by accurately predicting plays. If his next prediction follows that same path, then Patriots fans will be happy.
Romo believes that the Patriots will quickly rebound from consecutive four-win seasons and have a bounce-back year in 2025, pointing to Mike Vrabel and Josh McDaniels as the impetus for that belief.
“I’m excited for people to see how this develops, because Vrabel is a great football coach,” Romo said at the season kickoff event for the “NFL on CBS” earlier this week, via The Boston Globe‘s Ben Volin. “This is a team that could come on very fast. You put Vrabel and Josh McDaniels together, you get a young quarterback [Drake Maye], and you got some juice. I’m just saying that team, don’t be surprised if they have a really good season this year. I see the signs of this turning around very fast. They’re one of my surprise teams.”
While predicting a team that went 4-13 in two straight years to play in the postseason this year might seem far-fetched, Romo isn’t alone in believing that the Patriots could take a positive step forward in 2025.
In fact, opinions like Romo’s almost seem to be the prevailing expectation for the Patriots. Their projected win total sits at 8.5 at most sportsbooks. They’re also listed as the betting favorite in 11 of their 17 regular-season games at DraftKings Sportsbook. They have +115 odds to make the postseason, giving them an implied probability of 46.5 percent of playing in the playoffs.
Other members of the “NFL on CBS” team are buying stock in the Patriots. That includes J.J. Watt, who spent four seasons with Vrabel when the now Patriots head coach was a linebackers coach and defensive coordinator for the Texans.
Watt believes that eight or nine wins is the “proper baseline” for the Vrabel-led Patriots in 2025.
“The first year is always hard, but I know that guys who in that first year work on fundamentals, like Mike will, can really lock a team in quick,” Watt said, via Volin. “Because you’re not going to beat yourself. He’s always going to be on top of the little rules so you can take advantage.
“They’ve got a good young quarterback, they’re building a great team around him, they just need somebody to lay that foundation, and I think Mike’s that guy.”
While Watt doesn’t have experience of playing under Vrabel when the latter was a head coach, the new Patriots coach had four winning seasons at the start of his tenure as Titans head coach. After failing to make the playoffs at 9-7 in 2018, Tennessee reached the postseason in three consecutive years under Vrabel.
Vrabel took over a 9-7 ballclub when he became the Titans’ head coach, so he’s entering much different circumstances with the Patriots. Still, Maye’s upside, along with the additions of several free-agent standouts (DT Milton Williams, WR Stefon Diggs, CB Carlton Davis, OT Morgan Moses, LB Robert Spillane), have led many to feel bullish about the Patriots.
McDaniels recently stated that he thought Maye turned the corner during joint practices with the Vikings, while Vrabel said following Thursday’s preseason loss that he believes his team is starting “to have an identity.”
The Patriots currently aren’t slated to have CBS’s A-team, which features Jim Nantz and Romo, for any of their games for the upcoming season, but they are scheduled to have CBS’ B-team (Ian Eagle, Watt) when they host the Steelers in Week 3. However, CBS has only announced its broadcast assignments for the first three weeks of the season.
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