Patriots Lower Expectations After Vrabel Promise to ‘Galvanize’ Team: Insider
It would probably be an understatement to say that the once-mighty New England Patriots dynasty has “fallen.” After winning six Super Bowls from 2001 to 2018, collecting nine AFC championships in that stretch of time and reaching the AFC title game in 13 of those 18 seasons, the Patriots run of success crashed to a violent, devastating halt.
The crash actually began midway through the 2019 season, the Patriots’ final year with future Hall of Fame, generally considered greatest of all time quarterback Tom Brady leading the team.
Since winning their first eight straight games that season, the Patriots have compiled a throughly unimpressive record of 37-56, including losses in their only two playoff games of the past six seasons, losing records every year except 2019 and 2021 (when they went 10-7), and back-to-back 4-13 disasters leading into the 2025 campaign.
Belichick Loses His Touch
Another Patriots and NFL legend, head coach Bill Belichick, was at the controls for five of those post-dynasty seasons. But he was fired after the 2023 debacle.
His replacement, former Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo, also led the Patriots to a 4-13 season, and then was fired as well.
Vrabel Says He’ll ‘Galvanize’ New England
In stepped owner Robert Kraft’s next choice, another former Patriots linebacker, Mike Vrabel. The hiring created immediate excitement and renewed optimism among the Patriots’ faithful — a new spirt that Vrabel leaned into, and did a lot to generate, when he promised to “galvanize” the seemingly moribund franchise.
“I want to galvanize our football team. I want to galvanize this building. I want to galvanize our fans,” Vrabel said in his very first press conference. “We’re gonna earn the right to be here every day. We’re gonna remove entitlement from our football team.”
He followed through with what was widely seen as promising crop of free agent signings and a largely successful draft.
‘Course Correction’ After Early Optimism
But with the three-game preseason schedule now in the books, and the 2025 season’s opening kickoff against the Las Vegas Raiders at Gillette Stadium just two weeks away, one longtime Patriots insider said on Sunday that the Patriots are still facing some serious “growing pains,” and that the “early momentum” set by Vrabel has been “stunted.”
“Vrabel did such an effective job accomplishing one of his first goals as Patriots coach that a course correction is now required,” wrote ESPN Patriots correspondent Mike Reiss — who has covered the Patriots since 1997, first for local Boston media outlets, then moving on to ESPN in 2009.
“It’s a credit to Vrabel and how he had instantly uplifted the spirits and outlook of a Patriots franchise that had dipped in Bill Belichick’s final two seasons and Jerod Mayo’s lone year as coach,” Reiss wrote. “In another respect, it’s a reminder that the Patriots still have plenty of ground to cover to reach the upper echelon of the NFL.”
Vrabel’s New Tune: ‘Far From Where We Need to Be’
Reiss added that he spoke to an “NFL front office source who has watched the Patriots this preseason,” who had a highly restrained outlook on the season for the New England franchise, calling the team “thin in multiple spots beyond their starting lineup because of shaky drafts in recent years that have contributed to a roster that will require more than one year to replenish.”
Even Vrabel himself struck a downbeat note following the Patriots’ preseason finale, a 42-10 beat-down at hands of the New York Giants — a team that finished with an even worse record than New England last year (3-14).
“We’re so far from being where we need to be,” a somber Vrabel said after that game. “I’m really trying to get that message across, stringing one good day together, and putting another day together.”
