Mike Vrabel could very well find himself as NFL Coach of the Year following an unprecedented turnaround in New England this season. Part of his success with the Patriots in 2025 has been with his messaging to the team, and his message heading into a showdown with the Buffalo Bills this week should have every single player and fan fired up.
“We’re playing for a championship this week,” Vrabel said on “The Greg Hill Show.” “Each week you have a new opportunity, a new message. This is a championship week for us, an opportunity to win the AFC East, something this team hasn’t done in five years, and Buffalo has done it for five years in a row.”
A Patriots win against Buffalo this week would extend their winning streak to 11 games in a row, but more importantly, it would clinch the AFC East. Between 2000 and 2019, New England won 17 AFC East titles thanks to Tom Brady and Bill Belichick’s dominance.
The Bills overtook New England in 2020 as the Pats dynasty came to an end, and have held that title since then. Now, the Patriots have a chance to take that title back with a win this weekend, which would clinch a top-four seed in the AFC and bring them closer to the No. 1 seed.
Patriots Players and Fans Adjusting Preseason Expectations
Patriots-Bills could be one of the best games of the NFL season, but heading into 2025, few people would have predicted that. Vrabel has been able to turn a 4-13 team into one of the best in the NFL, thanks to the emergence of Drake Maye as an MVP caliber player and a massive improvement on the defensive side.
“We didn’t start and say ‘oh, we’re going to win the Super Bowl in November,” it’s not that,” Vrabel said. “It’s conversations I have with the team to focus on things that we need to try to do and want to do. [We need to] understand that this is a great opportunity for us this week here at home. Since the last time we played they’ve changed, we’ve changed, hopefully it’s going to be a fantastic game.”
Vrabel has pounded home the message that every week is another chance to prove something to the league, and though this week’s message follows that trend, there’s more juice behind it with what’s at stake.
Patriots fans went from hoping for a fun, competitive season while maybe making the playoffs to expecting a Super Bowl.
This week’s game will go a long way towards determining if a Super Bowl is truly a possibility for this team.
New England Can Clinch AFC East For First Time Since 2019
Though Buffalo could still finish with the same record as New England even with a Pats win this weekend, they won’t own the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Patriots win over the Bills back in week five kicked off their incredible run, and now the Bills want to end it as they come to Gillette Stadium.
Pats-Bills kicks off at 1 p.m. with Buffalo favored by one point.
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