There is a lot of hullabaloo when NFL schedules are released. It's nice to learn what teams will be on the schedule during the upcoming season for game-planning purposes. Yet, in 2024, it didn't matter much for the Patriots. Their offseason was so dismal (absent drafting Drake Maye, a no-brainer) it was speculated that the team had tanked the season before it even began.
It's no great revelation that NFL teams are built or rebuilt in the all-important offseason. There is no way to overestimate the importance of all three major phases of the offseason: free agency, the draft, and undrafted free agency. You put together your roster, and unless you're already an excellent team, your season is usually predetermined before it begins. There are exceptions.
With Mike Vrabel now in charge, the Patriots engineered one of their best off-seasons ever. Off-seasons aren't 100 percent predictive of a season. Yet, one thing is sure: if you have a poor team and have a dismal offseason, as the Patriots did in the 2024 offseason, expect a poor season as well.
CBS Sports lists their 5 teams with the worst offseasons
CBS Sports' Jordan Jadani identified five teams he thinks had the worst 2025 offseasons. The implications for the Patriots are clear: three of those teams, the Miami Dolphins, the Cleveland Browns, and the New Orleans Saints, are on the Pats' 2025 schedule. (The other two are the Lions and the 49ers.)
If you feel that the offseason is critical for most NFL teams, this could impact the Patriots' season. But some teams have less need for a top offseason than others. If you have a solid roster at the end of one season and have few losses in free agency, your offseason needs will be lessened.
Teams like the Lions and other top NFL teams almost always have fewer needs in the offseason than their counterparts from the previous season. It's especially true if they have the most important player on the field, the quarterback.
Quarterbacks are the great equalizers
While we see three teams on the Pats' schedule that had poor off-seasons according to CBS Sports, there are never any sure things in the NFL. Teams can go from worst to first in a hurry if they make great decisions like drafting a Jayden Daniels by the Washington Commanders. You never know what a team will be like until the season starts. For the most part, it's all speculation.
Additionally, you'll never know when or where a game-changing quarterback may emerge out of nowhere, as Tom Brady, a 199th pick in the draft, attests, as did Mr. Irrelevant, the 49ers' Brock Purdy. The 49ers are on the list of five, but with Purdy at quarterback, the offseason might not matter much at all.
A team like Miami will always be dangerous with Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback, no matter what they do in the offseason. And while the Saints may look like an easy win, the Browns may have an option like Shedeur Sanders, who could surprise.
One thing is certain, however: if your team is fortunate enough to have a transcendent quarterback like Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, or Josh Allen (and maybe Drake Maye?) on hand, you're golden. No matter what your team does in the offseason, it will have little impact on your season.
Great quarterbacks transcend whatever blunders their teams make in the off-season. The most striking example was Brady, whose brilliance overcame off-season personnel mismanagement in numerous offseasons for two decades. No matter what, Brady always found a way to do more with less every season, and Mahomes and Allen do the same. The bottom line is you play whoever is on your schedule and try to beat them. It's as simple as that.