FOXBOROUGH - On the morning after winning the AFC East title, it was business as usual for the Patriots. Players were in early for treatment, morning meetings, and individual film study. If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about this group and its mindset, I don’t know what to tell you.
Sure, they had their moment last night, as shared by the team’s social media arm. As they returned to Gillette on the team bus, players huddled around tablets watching Josh Allen’s two-point pass fall incomplete.
Thanks to the hard work of the support staff, those same hats and t-shirts that were ready to be busted out of the box three weekends ago against the Bills were awaiting the team when they returned.
The moment we became division champs 👏 pic.twitter.com/ImKStCRsjH
— z - New England Patriots (@Patriots) December 29, 2025
“It was about 15 minutes to get a picture, the shirt's passed out, the hat's passed out and the pictures organized, but other than that, back to work, focused on the Dolphins, focused on who we may have and a plan that we'll have to try to put together to improve,” Mike Vrabel summarized at his Monday morning press conference. “And I think that's the biggest thing, is just trying to really target the things that can reasonably be improved from a technical standpoint, and just things that come up throughout the game that we've maybe been working on and that we've seen or saw, and then some things that we've maybe been working on that haven't shown up. And that's what you do. You stay consistent and just continue to coach."
Even for those on the outside with the most outsized expectations, unseating the Bills in year one was unexpected. Internally, of course, this was one of their stated goals, but after week three, the Pats sat at 1-2. Yet it was that loss that solidified a feeling K’Lavon Chaisson had dating back to the spring.
“I think definitely the
