Despite Mike Vrabel handing out game balls like party favors following his team’s first win of the 2025 season, the New England Patriots have more questions than answers through two games.
New England’s road win over the Miami Dolphins was fun for all the wrong reasons. The Patriots made life difficult on themselves with self-inflicted penalties, a porous defense, and some brutal coverage (and kicking) on special teams. For all of Vrabel’s talk this offseason about eliminating bad football, the Patriots clearly have a lot of work to do entering a pivotal stretch of home games with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Carolina Panthers.
Thanks to a favorable 2025 schedule overall, the Patriots (1-1) remain a dark horse to hang around in the AFC playoff picture this season. Sunday’s key win over a divisional opponent naturally led to a bump in their playoff odds.
According to DraftKings, New England climbed to +140 to qualify for the postseason. At first glance, that seems perfectly reasonable, as the Patriots are likely to have a much more organized operation in November than they do in the first month of the season.
One NFL analyst, however, was confused by the Patriots’ ranking — and not how fans would expect.
Buy or sell the New England Patriots at +140 to make the playoffs entering Week 3?
Bleacher Report’s Brad Gagnon is not taking the cheese on the Patriots. He’s selling New England’s odds at +140 as far too generous.
“You need to give me better odds than that considering how much this roster is still working through as part of a rebuild. They laid an egg in their home opener and have almost no shot in the division, while the AFC North and West are much more likely to produce wild-card teams.”
For context, the Patriots already have better odds than teams like the Houston Texans (+145), Cincinnati Bengals (+160), and Las Vegas Raiders (+300), the team that beat them in Foxboro in Week 1 of the season.
A lot of factors play into the power ratings here, including injuries and remaining strength of schedule. The Patriots have the allure of a much-improved football team under the Vrabel regime, but so far through two games, that’s not what they’ve shown on the field.
For now, fans just have to call a spade a spade. The Patriots remain in an accelerated rebuild and should be considered a fringe playoff team, at best. They’ll most likely finish on the outside looking in. With that said, if they can remain in the hunt into December — which should be more than doable with their schedule this year — that would be a clear win.
It’s just not something worth betting on at this juncture.