FOXBOROUGH - With sweat still beading up on his forehead and trickling down his nose, Rhamondre Stevenson responded very matter-of-factly to a question about how this Patriots’ team needs to respond in the week ahead.
“When you lose, you’ve got to learn from it,” he said on Monday. “I think that's what we need to do. See what we did well, because we did a lot of things well yesterday, but see where we hurt ourselves, and ultimately work on that in practice and just put a focal point on that.”
Stevenson’s approach echoed what was said in the locker room following that disappointing 35-31 loss, where the Pats blew a 21-0 lead. Their confidence was not shaken - K’Lavon Chaisson said it remained a 10 out of 10. But after 10 straight wins, this little engine that could was reminded just how cruel this league can be.
“Coach summed it up, well, entering the locker room,” Garrett Bradbury recalled. “I heard him say, ‘Welcome the NFL, boys.’ This is the NFL. It's December football. It was two good teams going at it, and they made more plays than we did.”
The Patriots certainly didn’t need a wake-up call. They weren’t out there peacocking during their bye week, telling the world they were some undeniable force or immovable object. Vrabel wouldn’t allow that, nor would so many of the players he and his people hand-picked.
This team is built in a certain way - a come-to-work-to-put-in-the-work kind of way that, perhaps with the exception of the Bengals week, has been met. But what yesterday’s postponement of the hat-and-t-shirt celebration (one that can’t be achieved even next week) can do is hammer home that message, and perhaps even amplify the need to do even more as they hit the home stretch.
“I don’t want to say you get comfortable, but winning 10 straight...not a lot of teams do that,” noted Bradbury. “I never like to say it's like a wake-up call, because you don't want to lose. But I think this week, in practice and meetings, I think everyone will be a little more attentive and understand where we're at in the season and what we're fighting for. Coach Vrabel said after the game, ‘If we don't learn anything from it, then it is a loss.’ But I think there are some things we can learn from it. If we can be a little bit better in practice and a little bit better next Sunday, I think we will learn from it. “
There’s also this fact, one that can’t be denied. If this roster is going to succeed and make a deep run into the postseason, they’ll need more from their best players. Drake Maye’s second half was ugly. He completed just 5 of 12 passes, was intercepted once, and had another dropped. Maye looked confused at times and wasn’t as decisive as he needed to be.
His receivers didn’t help the cause. There wasn’t a whole lot of separation to be found on tape, and Stefon Diggs was erased far too often as the Pats’ top target. Kayshon Boutte was there a couple of times, but he clearly wasn’t the primary option on those plays, and Maye never got to that spot in his progression.
There’s also the Christian Barmore situation, for lack of a better term. He’s not been disruptive enough, especially with Milton Williams out. Barmore spent most of his time in the postgame locker room, complaining to no one in particular about being held, but he was held in 2023, and it didn’t matter. Then, he emerged as one of the best defensive tackles in football. Now? Barmore hasn’t delivered the bang for his contractual buck.
“Yeah, I mean, we expect that in this league – we've said this – that your best players have to play good for you to win, and we consider him one of our better players, just like our quarterback,” Vrabel said today when I asked about Barmore’s performance in particular. “We expect the quarterback's going to have to play good for us to win. Whoever we consider to be our best players, they have to play good in this league. That's what this thing comes down to. So, we'll continue to find ways to make production, get production and get stops, and show everybody the good ones and the things that we need to improve on.”
Vrabel demanding more from his best players is something I’ve repeatedly alerted you about this season. This is who he was in Tennessee, and it’s who he will continue to be in New England. He’s right to do it. If Maye is going to scuffle, Barmore can’t impact Josh Allen and/or slow James Cook, their edge rushers are rarely seen, and Diggs finishes with 3 catches, then beating the better teams - the playoff teams - will be harder. As we’ve seen, albeit on just a few occasions this year due to the schedule, the Patriots are capable of that when the biggest stars play at that level. But no amount of scheming, or even role players elevating, can mask deficiencies that are still one more offseason away from being addressed and - hopefully - rectified. Until then, it's play the hand you've been dealt, and if this team plays it right, they'll be all right.