Throughout their years of utter domination that ultimately led to a 20-year dynasty, the Patriots created many enemies across the league and in the media, most of whom still hold grudges made public to this day.
One of their biggest haters has long been FS1's Nick Wright, a massive Chiefs fan who had long prayed for Tom Brady and the Patriots' downfall. He has had a lot of outlandish things over the years about the New England team, mainly from a biased standpoint, given his favorite team.
But that cannot be said about his most recent take after the Patriots ended the Chargers' playoff hopes on Sunday, and it's a shocking development considering the amount of negative things he has consistently said in the past and even recently.
Maybe it's because the Chargers are a divisional rival to the Chiefs, so Wright enjoys seeing them get eliminated from Super Bowl contention. Or perhaps he has finally turned a new leaf and is willing to acknowledge excellence when he sees it; it's hard to say, but it's still hard to believe his complimentary words about their performance.
Nick Wright shocks all of Patriots Nation with his latest take on their postseason win
After the Patriots were officially the winners of their Wild Card matchup on Sunday night, Wright took to his Twitter/X and actually complimented how New England performed, even crediting Drake Maye, who didn't play his best, and labeled them a championship caliber team.
It made many fans do a double take, thinking it must be April Fools Day, but it's not. Nick Wright really had nice things to say.
Absolutely 10 out of 10 tremendous performance by the Pats defense & Vrabel.
— nick wright (@getnickwright) January 12, 2026
Drake Maye had some first playoff game jitters but then settled in and made the game sealing throw.
That was an awesome, championship caliber playoff victory for the Pats.
It's quite a change of pace for the commentator, who has historically minimized what the Patriots accomplished during the Bill Belichick/Tom Brady era and has enjoyed the last five years of their fall to the bottom of the league.
He appears to have finally been willing to accept that they are a good team this year, and Maye has the potential to be a truly great quarterback in the NFL for a long time, so he's jumping on the bandwagon much earlier than anyone expected.
It'll be interesting to see if this kind of optimism continues, as the Patriots head into the divisional round to face their next opponent on their hopeful path to the Super Bowl, or if this was just a heat-of-the-moment, offhand comment from Wright after seeing the Chiefs' divisional rival taken down.
It's probably best not to hold your breath, though.