The Patriots’ 2025 season is right around the corner, and there is an air of excitement in New England. With Mike Vrabel coming aboard as head coach, and some major investments being made in free agency and the draft, the team seems well on its way to a successful rebuild.
How successful the first year of that particular rebuild will be remains to be seen, though. Obviously, success at this stage is not just measured by wins and losses, but that is the ultimate bottom line in the NFL.
And so, without further ado, let’s take a look at this week’s Pats Pulpit Debates question:
How many games will the Patriots win in 2025?
First some picks from our staff, then it’s up to the comment section for your picks.
Bernd Buchmasser: From coaching to overall roster talent, this year’s Patriots team is a better one that last year’s. That alone should lead to an uptick in wins and keep New England alive in the race for a playoff spot deeper into the season. At the end of the day, however, the team’s general new-look nature as well as still-existing shortcomings — including a lack of high-end talent at several spots and depth questions across the board — will lead to some growing pains and might cap the ceiling at eight wins.
Rich Hill: I think the Patriots will be completely mediocre in the best of ways. Good coaching and developing talent and an easy schedule should be enough to get this team to 9 wins and competing for a wild card slot.
Matthew Rewinski: Living in Music City and having a front row to all six seasons of the Mike Vrabel show, I’m lower on the Vrabel hype machine than most. To be completely honest, his reputation is mostly riding on a couple games thrashing the Patriots in extremely high-profile fashion (34-10 in 2018, the Corey Davis game) and of course, the AFC wild card game that both sealed Tom Brady’s last year as a Patriot and sent the Titans on a rocket ship to the AFC Championship (which, of course, they have never come close to reaching since).
Put simply, I don’t think the Patriots are as high-floor as they’re being billed. Realistically, the entire offense outside of Drake Maye is still full of wild cards, in both the good and bad sense, and the defense has the star power but it’s also Year 0 executing a completely different system literally none of them have played before. Even with a comfy last-place schedule, I’d bet the first half of the season will be a lot more of a grind than people think it will, and hopefully we see cohesive three-phases football by the time we’re Christmas shopping. Unless Josh McDaniels has another 2007 offensive scheme up his sleeve, of course. 6-7 wins sounds about right.
Marima: An 8-9 season would be a very successful year in Mike Vrabel’s first season righting this ship. So far it’s like he was sent straight from central casting, to play the role of perfect Patriots head coach — returning to remedy all that went so horribly wrong in 2024.
And I’m all in, ready to cheer them on. Forget Vrabel’s coaching record in Tennessee. Forget the team dramas since our favorite band broke up. New day, clean slate.
But even with a terrific draft class (on paper) and a decent starting roster, the health and depth of this crew is tenuous. The questions are many. Will savvy opponents be able to scheme around the Pats’ young offense? How quickly can they learn and adjust? Will the defense be effective at tackling and setting the edge? How creative are the game-plans?
Pre-Week 1 finds me hopeful, but this rebuild will take a few years to get back on solid ground.
Pat Lane: Since around May I have been predicting eight wins, and I’m not going to change that now. I am excited about the changes that have taken place in Foxboro, and I think that the Patriots are significantly more talented this year than they were last year. However, their depth is still terrible, and injuries happen all the time in the NFL, so I don’t feel confident in their ability to compete if a few guys go down.
If everything breaks right for them, I could see them winning 10 games, and if everything goes wrong for them, I could see somewhere around six wins. I think they’ll be somewhere in the middle, though, with a good amount of things breaking right, but also some things going wrong and some players not living up to expectations. That’s why I have them at eight wins.
Alec Shane: The AFC seems wide open this year, with a whole mess of teams likely to compete for a wild card spot — New England included. If they catch a few breaks and stay healthy, I can see a scenario where the Patriots go 9-8 and sneak into the playoffs. Then maybe they get hot and upset Houston in the wild card before getting bounced in the divisional round. A lot would have to go right for that scenario to play out… but it’s not impossible.
Now, it’s your turn: How successful do you think the Patriots will be in 2025? How many games will they win? Might they even challenge for the playoffs? Please scroll down to the comment section below to share your answers, thoughts, and more.
If you want to know how to sign up to join the debate,please click here.
0 Comments