The 2025 New England Patriots are rolling with 10 straight wins and a bye week to recover, and they may have the NFL's MVP in quarterback Drake Maye, to boot. That's the good news. The bad is that the mighty Buffalo Bills await on December 14.
The Patriots evolved from an inauspicious start of the season at 1-2, and proceeded to beat 10 successive teams to get to 11-2. The "weak strength of schedule" crowd will continue to say the Patriots haven't done enough. Try telling that to the Bills, whom they beat in Buffalo, and the Bucs, whom they beat in Tampa.
Regardless of that hoopla, the Patriots are winners as some predicted, and are on top of both the AFC East (a stated goal of new head coach Mike Vrabel) and the entire AFC — for the moment. Things can change in a hurry, and a bye week can rearrange the chessboard.
For now, Patriot Nation can enjoy that top-of-the-NFL feeling.
The New England Patriots are finally getting the national recognition they deserve
When few observers gave the Patriots a chance of making much noise in this first year of the Vrabel era, the first 13 games have proven otherwise. Now, high rankings are the order of the day. Colin Cowherd of Fox Sports has the team ranked as high as it gets.
"Listen, I watched them go to Buffalo and win, watched them go to Tampa and win. Fifth time they've scored 30-plus points (in Week 13). They're incredibly sound. Great on special teams. I's very reminiscent of the Belichick-Brady stuff with a more mobile quarterback and a player-friendly coach. What don't they do really well? They don't run the football particularly well..."
Obviously, Cowherd hasn't bought into the weak "strength of schedule" stuff and takes the record for what it is, 11-2. The NFL follows a preset formula for each team's schedule that's built for parity, and sometimes it actually works out that way. In the case of the Patriots, it's much more than that, as Cowherd suggests.
The 2025 Patriots are a product of talent
When you win 10 games in a row in the NFL, you're not lucky, no matter who you've played. Anyone who thinks otherwise, with teams like the Bills and Bucs having been beaten by Vrabel's Patriots, has to take another look. Are the 2025 Patriots the 2001, 2003, or 2004 versions of the mighty Patriots dynasty? Likely not, but who knows? The reality is they are what their record says they are, and that's 11-2.
As Cowherd pointed out, there are concrete reasons. First is the presence of the king of the hill, Mike Vrabel. Make no mistake about it, Vrabel runs the Patriots. Compare and contrast the the past two years of free agency and the draft, and any questions about who built the new Patriots will dissolve. He's a personnel evaluator par excellence, and it showed dramatically in his first Patriots' offseason.
Vrabel rebuilt his defense, adding playmakers to every level. Its improvement has been stark. He also went to work on the offense. He knew he had the most important cog in quarterback Drake Maye, but Maye had little help in 2024. So he rebuilt the critically important offensive line, the wide receiver unit, and added an explosive running back to give his quarterback what he needed to succeed.
That offensive makeover led to Maye now being a frontrunner to win the NFL's MVP award, and he's also getting sky-high praise from Cowherd. In toto, Vrabel and Maye's efforts have led to a winning team as the AFC East division and conference leaders, frontrunner status in the MVP conversation for Maye, and maybe another Coach of the Year award for Vrabel.
The Patriots are 11-2, and Colin Cowherd is right. After 13 weeks, they're as good a team as there is in the NFL.