Reflecting On An Incredible Patriots Season

Forgive me for my tardiness, but it's the offseason for dark web sports bloggers too. Sometimes the need to disassociate after watching your team get throttled in the Super Bowl takes over, and a month passes before you can properly reflect and appreciate the season. Nobody's perfect.

So while the new season is officially underway, I want to take one more look back at the 2025-26 season, and try my best to put into words the incredible feelings Patriots fans felt this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujJQyhB0dws

Before I get to the feel good part, allow my cynicism to lead. Part of me can't help but think of the very real possibility that in five years time, I'll be Andy Bernard talking about the 2025-26 Patriots. Part of me is fearful the magical mystery ride we rode this season used up all three genie wishes of the Drake Maye era. That the team that no one thought would get to where they got, or reach the heights they reached, will fall off the cumulonimbus cloud of prosperity and come back to Earth, never to experience the sky again.

While I can't control my anxious pessimism about the future, I can control how I feel about this past season. And it was one of the most fun season's as a fan I've ever had. The unexpected highs, the constant overachievements, going from lovable to hated in the span of weeks, it was unlike any season I'd experienced. So whether or not this team will be a one hit wonder is irrelevant; in fact, if that does become the case, it may just make this season even better.

Unlike the days of reign, when we frequented the AFC Championship at the turn of every calendar year, I didn't take this season for granted. Cause unlike those days, I don't know if we'll be back. Unlike those days, I couldn't believe we were there in the first place. Unlike those days, winning was outpacing expectation.

Belief and expectation are not mutually exclusive. I can believe something will happen without expecting it to. I could believe the Patriots were going to win every game except one from week 4 to the Super Bowl, but not expect them to. How could any reasonable person expect that?

When we beat the Bills in Buffalo on Sunday Night Football in the biggest win since Super Bowl 53, fully proclaiming ourselves as "back", I was through the roof. I believed we could win that game, but like I said in that blog, a blowout loss was equally if not more conceivable, and any hope we were building would burn to ashes like the current Highmark Stadium this spring.

After that game, the hype grew.

If we're in the trust tree here, I fully expected to lose to New Orleans. They were a scrappy team, and we were unproven, fresh off the regime's first taste of success, on the road in a tough place to play.

But we walked into their trap and took over their trap, making Kirk Cousins proud. And we did the same thing in Tennessee, and against Cleveland at home. 3/3 on trap games after the biggest win in five years, two of them in dominant fashion.

I don't think this team got enough credit for that stretch. Call me crazy for touting three wins against bottom feeders, but most teams, especially ones constructed like us, don't win all three of those after a win like Buffalo. Collectively under-experienced, coming off a season and potentially franchise-changing win on SNF, most teams are laying an egg in at least one of those spots. I mean I thought they would, and I wouldn't have faulted them if they did.

That's when I knew this team was different. They believed in each other, they played for each other, and they played together. You might not have liked them, but they liked them. You may not have believed they were tough, but they were warriors. And the locker room strengthened with each win.

I won't go through every single one (cause there's a lot), but that level of togetherness and toughness led to 13 wins in the last 14 weeks of the regular season. I mean it was like being transported back to 2016, when I'd tune in on Sunday's expecting to win, and passively watch the game as they methodically lure their opponents into a camel clutch.

As the offense struggled against the league's best defenses in the postseason, our defense stepped their game up and absolutely dominated on their road to the Super Bowl. It was complementary football at its finest, and again is a testament to the level of "team" this team was.

The Super Bowl didn't go as planned, but that happens. Even Tom and the old Patriots lost a few. But I was left with this clip of Vrabel in the tunnel as the guys went to the locker room, and any doubt after that game that we weren't where we needed to be, any doubt that we’d ever get back, or that we were lucky to be there, was put to rest.

That’s the guy you want in your corner. That’s the guy you want calling the shots. That’s the guy that guys around the league will and already do want to play for.

It may be awhile until we get back to the pinnacle, but my confidence in the future couldn’t be higher. We have the coach, we have the QB, and we have an organization that’s trending upwards in both on field success and league-wide reputation.

I’ll never forget the ride we took this year. It was as fun of a season as an NFL fan base can have, and it’s fucked up but also awesome it happened to the fan base that dominated the league for two of the last two and a half decades.

You won’t see me apologizing. I can’t wait for next season. Go Pats.