The spot last week, with the New England Patriots preparing to host an AFC East showdown with the Buffalo Bills fresh off a bye week, felt just about perfect for Week 15 of the season.
What Patriots fans definitely didn’t expect, though, was the surprise absence of one of the team’s most irreplaceable players.
Middle linebacker Robert Spillane emerged from New England’s Week 13 win over the New York Giants with foot and ankle injuries, but the severity, in a game the Patriots led 30-7 at halftime, was kept under the radar. That Spillane, who carried a questionable designation into the Bills game last week, was officially active after pregame warmups made his injury seem like a complete non-issue.
It has suddenly blossomed into a major problem for Mike Vrabel’s defense.
Spillane was surprisingly held out of Sunday’s game against the Bills, even as Josh Allen and company pummeled the Patriots with five consecutive touchdown drives to flip an early 21-0 deficit. We're now starting to understand why, as Vrabel officially ruled Spillane out for Sunday Night Football against the Baltimore Ravens on Friday afternoon.
LB Robert Spillane (left foot/ankle) is out for Sunday's game, per Mike Vrabel.
— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) December 19, 2025
OLB/DE Harold Landry, CB Marcus Jones, CB Carlton Davis and DT Christian Barmore are all questionable, per Vrabel.
The Patriots’ odds of a rebound win in Baltimore just took a major hit
If there’s one player on this Patriots roster the team cannot replace, it’s obviously quarterback Drake Maye.
You could make a real case for Spillane being No. 2 on that list, though.
Even after sitting out the Bills games, Spillane leads all Patriots defenders with 97 total tackles on the season. His pursuit in run defense has also been critical, as per Pro Football Focus, he leads the team in total run-stuffs with 31.
Without him, the Patriots ran with Christian Elliss and Jack Gibbens as their full-time inside linebackers, and the Bills attacked accordingly. Buffalo took advantage of some mismatches in the passing game, which you would expect from an Allen-led team, but Spillane’s absence was felt most against the run.
Spillane was among the leaders of a run defense that held Bills running back James Cook to 49 scoreless scrimmage yards back in Week 5, when the Patriots marched into Buffalo in Week 5 and left with a galvanizing, 23-20 win. With Spillane on the sideline Sunday, Cook gashed the Patriots for 111 total scrimmage yards and three touchdowns; the Bills racked up 168 rushing yards in the game overall.
The Patriots’ elite run defense came up huge during the team’s 10-game winning streak, but they could be in trouble this week against Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry and the Ravens. Baltimore’s offense has been far from a juggernaut in 2025, but its rushing attack has the ability to take over a game, and tight ends Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely could pose some major matchup issues for Vrabel’s unit, especially with edge Harold Landry, nickel corner Marcus Jones, CB Carlton Davis and DT Christian Barmore all officially questionable for this game.
By now, Patriots fans have fully processed last week’s brutal loss to the Bills. Vrabel’s clearly not selling out for these final few regular season wins. With how thin the roster is, he’s playing the long game to ensure the team’s most irreplaceable players are healthy and ready to go in January, when the games matter most.
A Sunday night trip to Baltimore is a tough spot for any young team to pull off, but Friday’s injury news just made it exponentially more difficult.