Sportswriters have been accused of being many things. Smart is not often one of them.
Fair enough.
So if this commentary is obvious to you, or if I’m late to the party, then so be it. But hear me out.
We should have higher expectations for the New England Patriots next season.
Now, of course, there are no universal expectations. Perhaps some folks are calling for a perfect 20-0 season en route to a seventh banner being hung at Gillette. We could all probably benefit from living such a hopeful life.
Yet when it comes to the general feeling about the upcoming season from the majority of people, it feels safe to settle on something like this: Maybe 10 wins, 11 if they're lucky, maybe contend for the division, maybe win another playoff win for good measure. Sportsbooks placed the over-under on Patriots wins at 9.5, which tells you plenty of people in the football world are anticipating a season just above or below .500. Even the team’s owner, Robert Kraft, is only asking his team to “make” the playoffs.
Has a reigning conference champion ever had such low expectations mere months after playing in the biggest game in the sport? Unlikely.
(Fortunately, head coach Mike Vrabel expressed the desire to win the division, host playoff games, and compete for championships a day after Kraft's remarks in Arizona.)
We know the two chief reasons. First, the schedule. The schedule, the schedule, the schedule. THE SCHEDULE! No longer will the Patriots face cupcake after cupcake every week. The 2026 strength of schedule is intimidating, overpowering, overwhelming, overbearing, and any other adjective that starts with over you can think of.
Very scary.
Second, there is the likely reality that the Patriots simply won’t be as charmed next season as they were in 2025. The way they largely avoided injury, the way the schedule lined up, the way Bo Nix/Nico Collins/Lamar Jackson/Ja’Marr Chase couldn’t play against them … the Patriots were no doubt enchanted by the football gods last season. And considering how unforgivingly brutal the sport of football is, the law of averages is expected to swoop in and decimate the team next year to make everything even stephen.
Is there merit in both assumptions? Yes. Lots of it. That’s why nobody’s calling for 15 wins and another Super Bowl trip.
But I’ll show you three reasons to believe this Patriots team should be much better than these middling prognostications in 2026 might suggest.
• The Division
For Kraft to only express a desire to make the playoffs rather than win the division felt bizarre. Perhaps he misspoke, or maybe he was so focused on sharing the details of the new training facility that he didn’t quite remember the exact talking point planned for 2026 expectations.
Regardless, the Patriots should one thousand percent be focused on winning the AFC East.
The bottom of the division is dreadful. Beyond dreadful. The only reason Aaron Glenn wasn’t fired in New York is that the Jets likely recognized they’d be getting the 11th-best candidate on the coaching market. They’re a disaster. And the Dolphins have blown it up in an effort to completely reboot the franchise.
Put it this way: The Patriots have better odds to win the Super Bowl (+1800) than the Jets and Dolphins have of winning the division (+2000 and +3000, respectively).
So the Patriots should absolutely go 4-0 against these two teams. A mishap in sunny Florida won't be acceptable this time around.
Split with the Bills (more on them in a second), and the Patriots will be at 5-1 in their divisional games, needing to go just 5-6 in their remaining 11 games to get to 10 wins.
You’re telling me that even with the schedule concerns and likelihood of facing more adversity in 2026, the Patriots can’t go 5-6 in 11 games?
I don’t buy it.
• The Bills of Buffalo
Then there’s the Bills. Surely the Bills will be better in 2026, yeah? They traded a second-round for DJ Moore, so they mean business, right?
Maybe. But! For all the talk about the difficulty of the Patriots’ schedule, how do you like this slate for Buffalo: home games vs. the Chiefs, Ravens, Lions and Bears, and road trips to Green Bay, L.A. (Rams), Houston and Minnesota.
That schedule is a BEAR. This evens the playing field with regard to the AFC East race with New England.
Do you know what isn’t even? The head coaching disparity. Putting the current tabloid situation aside, Mike Vrabel is 10 or perhaps 20 times the head football coach that Joe Brady is. The firing of Sean McDermott for the promotion of Brady could blow up in Buffalo's face.
The Patriots seem to generally have more stability right now. Kraft likely won’t sit behind a microphone any time soon and scapegoat a fired coach for drafting a wide receiver who’s still on the roster the way that Terry Pegula did with Keon Coleman.
Everyone loves the Bills because Josh Allen is superhuman. And that makes a lot of sense. He’s someone worth believing in.
But in no world should the Bills be expected to simply be in a better place than the Patriots solely because of the quarterback.
And hey, speaking of quarterbacks …
• Drake Maye’s Year 3 Leap
OK, remember those people I mentioned earlier? The ones within whom optimism abounds? You may need to channel those folks for this one. But maybe not.
Because it shouldn’t be outrageous to believe that Drake Maye will be better in Year 3 than he was in Year 2.
And in Year 2, he missed out on being the MVP of the entire league by one first-place vote.
Essentially, the leap that we thought Maye might take in his third season has already been taken, which may limit the size of the jump from last year to next year. Nevertheless, the kid has still only started 33 NFL games. He won two home playoff games and a road AFC title game before playing in the Super Bowl.
He may have petered out toward the end of that run for a number of reasons (shoulder health being a significant one), but that experience will be invaluable as he now enters the season as a bona fide NFL star.
And because he compares so well in many ways to Allen, consider what the Buffalo QB’s passing stats looked like in years two and three:
2019 (Year 2)
58.8 percent completion rate, 3,089 yards, 20 TDs, 9 INTs, 85.3 rating
2020 (Year 3)
69.2 percent completion rate, 4,544 yards, 37 TDs, 10 INTs, 107.2 rating
Can Maye have as dramatic an improvement on his 72 percent completion rate, 3,494 yards, 31 TDs, 8 INTs and 113.5 rating? Well no. That would be insane. Yet a steady, notable improvement is more likely.
And if you’re only needing him to beat up on two terrible divisional opponents, split with the Bills, and go 6-5 against the rest of the schedule to get to 11 wins and possibly win the division?
I don’t know how to tell you this, but he’s most likely going to get there.
So, yes, the road is tougher, the schedule is harder. Doesn’t matter. As Vrabel eloquently put it, everything about the NFL is hard. That's why we're not calling for 15 wins and a mid-February trip to Inglewood.
But 9.5 wins? Making the playoffs? Come on, people. Be better than that. The Patriots surely will be.