Rewind, and remember.
Mike Vrabel standing behind a podium as the Patriots head coach for the first time, Jan. 13, 2025.
A fresh haircut, blue suit, white dress shirt and dark tie. Vrabel spoke of galvanizing the team, and laid out a vision of what the Patriots would become, a vision shaped by lessons learned over his football life.
“One thing I realized about culture is you can find out what your culture looks like when your family, your business, or your team is at its low point,” Vrabel said. “It’s not when you’re winning Super Bowls. It’s not when you’re 7-1 or 10-1 … but when you get hit in the mouth, or you’re down or the chips are against you. Then you can take a snapshot of what your company or your team looks like. And then you’ll find out what kind of culture you have.”
Well, let’s take a snapshot of these Patriots.
They’re 0-1.
No biggie. Same as last year.
Drake Maye just threw three interceptions in a loss at Seattle.
Mild concern. Maye has committed 11 turnovers in the Patriots’ six games since New Year’s Day and played well from start to finish in just one of them: a cruise-control win over the Dolphins in their regular-season finale.
A.J. Brown is now in a walking boot with a high ankle sprain that might sideline him until Halloween.
Medium concern. Scary.
So, how about that culture?
That’s TBD.
Now, let’s understand one another: since the day of that press conference Vrabel has earned our belief, if not optimism, that the Patriots will be fine. More than fine. My expectation that they will make the playoffs and then win a game or two in the remains intact because, as I wrote before kickoff in Seattle, I am inclined to toss out Week 1 results because of how often and how loudly season openers lie in the NFL.
(Again, just ask the last two Patriots teams.)
But injuries we cannot ignore. Brown missing six or seven games represents a tectonic shift for the Patriots. The minute they acquired him, they banked on Brown elevating their offense with his individual playmaking and the gravity he carries, pulling defensive attention away from teammates who would now have more time and space to operate, from the running backs to the other receivers and tight ends.
That’s gone now. All of it.
Moreover, Brown’s bum ankle will not be the high mark for Patriots hardship this season. Not a chance.
A.J. Brown of the New England Patriots is assisted off the field after being injured in a play against the Seattle Seahawks during the third quarter in a game at Lumen Field on Sept. 9, 2026 in Seattle. (Jane Gershovich/Getty Images)
Be it the schedule, including two upcoming trips to face the AFC’s biggest winners of Week 1 (the Jaguars and Bills), the Pats’ increasingly shaky depth or the inevitability of enduring worse injury luck than last year, greater adversity lies ahead. They know this. Vrabel has embraced it. But how the 2026 Patriots handle their misfortune and missed opportunities is unknowable until they actually do it.
That starts Sunday against the Steelers, who last season served the Pats their earliest culture test by knocking them off in a Week 3 win in Foxboro. More than most opponents, that Pittsburgh team was well-positioned to challenge the Patriots’ burgeoning new identity under Vrabel. The Steelers knew who they were because it’s who they’ve always been: a tough, physical, defensive team that played to its identity in a low-scoring game that Sunday with a game-sealing, all-out blitz.
Entering that weekend, the Pats knew that if they simply played clean football that day, they would outlast an opponent with middling roster talent. They didn’t. Instead, they turned the ball over three times in the second half, a performance that invited reasonable questions about whether Maye’s butterfingers are a feature or a bug of his game.
Sound familiar?
As we know, the Patriots’ response to that culture check was ripping off a 10-game win streak. In that time, they established the identity Vrabel wanted. They developed the culture, the environment and work habits he originally gave voice to almost two years ago.
So if the Patriots respond to last week’s loss and Brown’s injury with another win streak, yippee. Another dreamy season lies ahead.
If not, the real work, the type of work most expected Vrabel would first undertake when he took over a 4-13 team, begins. The type of work that became his calling card in Tennessee: winning from a losing position.
Outmuscling better opponents. Outmuscling his equals after they’d taken a lead. The Titans, somehow, standing triumphant when you least expected it, their noses bloodied and all of the tricks emptied from their sleeves.
During his six-year run as the head coach in Tennessee, no coach won a higher percentage of his games as an underdog than Vrabel. The best examples were all packed into 2019, his second season.
The Titans started 2-4, a time and place NFL history says aspiring playoff teams should prepare for their last rites. Back then, fewer than 10% of teams that started 2-4 had gone on to make the playoffs since the league expanded to a 12-team postseason in 1990. Not only did Tennessee reach the playoffs, they delivered knockout blows to Tom Brady and the Patriots’ dynasty in the wild-card round, then Lamar Jackson, the newly minted MVP, and the top-seeded Ravens in the divisional round.
But enough about the past.
The future the Patriots are chasing is greater than what Vrabel achieved in Tennessee.
It’s more than what they accomplished last season.
If that vision, that glittering image of Vrabel lifting the Lombardi Trophy and handing it over to a beaming Maye in mid-February feels further away than it did a week ago, that’s because it is.
The Patriots’ climb is steeper without Brown. Much steeper.
But the road ahead is long, plenty long, paved with gut checks and gut punches still to come.
Maybe, somewhere deep down, this is how Vrabel wanted it all along.