Defense wins championships. It's an adage you're bound to hear quite a lot today, as the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks are ready to rely on their respective defensive units to get a ring clinched in Santa Clara by the end of Super Bowl LX.
It's a key element to the Patriots' success this season, though, and there's a specific piece to their defense that one analyst feels is a unique piece to their resurgence from a 4-13 2024 season into a Super Bowl-bound one in 2025: their interior defensive line.
Per Doug Kyed of the Boston Herald, a source told him that one piece to this near-championship squad that you could bank on seeing other teams try to replicate headed into the 2026 is their line made up of stalwarts in Milton Williams and K'Lavon Chaisson.
NFL should take notice of this one key strength for Patriots
New England couldn't have gotten such a strong defensive line pieced together had they not, also, hit on essentially every single free agent signing they made before the 2025 season. It's a good thing when you get decent production out of most of your big-name signings. It's almost unheard of to get that production from the entire class.
That free agency, highlighted by Williams, Chaisson, Harold Landry III, and Carlton Davis III, just to name a few, defined what made this Patriots season so successful. It's another feather in the cap for a New England front office that was clearly intent on keeping their post-Tom Brady rebuild short-lived.
READ MORE: Drake Maye finally gets a Super Bowl edge he rarely enjoyed all season
“Usually, there’s some luck involved in that, which is hard to replicate. Then the quarterback taking the huge step that he did, that’s less of a surprise but more critical to their success than any of the other guys they brought in. So, a couple things that are easier said than done if you’re attempting to replicate their success," said one source to Kyed.
Head coach Mike Vrabel has his team ready for the moment - as in, ready to the point of actually playing Bad Bunny music during a simulated game's halftime ready. The defense has specifically shown their preparedness all postseason long, and they're looking ready to take advantage of a turnover-prone Sam Darnold in the pocket in the biggest game of the year.