One of the biggest knocks on the 2025 Patriots was that they played an easy schedule. While no team has any control over the slate of regular-season games they’ll face, no one will be able to characterize New England’s 2026 schedule as soft.
By virtue of winning the division and thanks to a rotation that has all AFC East teams playing every team from the AFC West and NFC North, the Patriots will have anything but a collection of creampuffs next season.
The home opponents include their AFC East rivals (Bills, Dolphins, Jets) and games against the Broncos, Packers, Steelers, Vikings, and Raiders (who beat them at Gillette Stadium in 2025, somehow). Road games include (beyond Buffalo, Miami, New York) trips to Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Jacksonville, and L.A., to face the Chargers.
In 2025, the Patriots’ schedule went like this: Raiders, at Dolphins, Steelers, Panthers, at Bills, at Saints, at Titans, Browns, Falcons, at Buccaneers, Jets, at Bengals, Giants, Bills, at Ravens, at Jets, Dolphins. After starting 1-2 (with home losses to Las Vegas and Pittsburgh), the Patriots ripped through the rest of the slate, losing only at home to the Bills.
The Patriots eventually earned the No. 2 seed, with a wild-card win over the offensively-challenged Chargers, a divisional victory over a Texans team that had too many turnovers to contend, and an AFC Championship in Denver that saw both offenses shut down when the snow started to accumulate.
With the Chiefs, Ravens, and Bengals missing the playoffs and the Bills losing in overtime to the Broncos, the Patriots didn’t have to face the best of the best quarterbacks in the AFC. By the time the Pats got to the Super Bowl, they ran into a Seattle buzzsaw.
The game was never close. It felt like a ‘70s/'80s-era Super Bowl smothering, where one team was clearly better than the other. Indeed, if they played Super Bowl LX ten times, the Patriots would have been hard pressed to win once.
Maybe quarterback Drake Maye’s downplayed shoulder problem was a factor. Maybe left tackle Will Campbell’s lingering knee issue made it even harder to fend off Seattle’s defensive front. Maybe the abundance of 12s, and the silent count they forced, made it anything but a neutral-site game.
Regardless, the Patriots successfully climbed the AFC playoff tree only to step on a rake in Santa Clara. Next year, it will be much harder to emerge as the No. 2 seed. It could be much harder to win the division, if the switch from Sean McDermott to Joe Brady gives the Bills the boost they’re hoping for.
So, good news — there will be no asterisk attached to the 2026 Patriots schedule. Bad news, next year will be much more meat grinder than cake walk.
When a team gets dominated the way the Patriots did in Super Bowl LX, no single decision makes the difference. But one particularly bad decision by Patriots coach Mike Vrabel deserves scrutiny.
When the Patriots finally scored their first touchdown of the game to make the score 19-6 in the fourth quarter, Vrabel sent his extra point team onto the field, rather than leaving his offense on the field to attempt a two-point conversion. That was a big mistake.
Mike Tirico noted on the game broadcast as he called the Patriots’ extra point that a two-point conversion would have given the Patriots a clearer path to tie the game and perhaps force overtime.
“He’s gonna go for one here,” Tirico said as the Patriots’ extra point team lined up. “Go for two and make it 19-8, an 11-point game. A touchdown, two point and a field goal would be the math to make it a tie game. Instead they try the extra point, Borregales knocks it in to make it a 19-7 game.”
The difference between trailing by 11 and trailing by 12 in the fourth quarter is significant. An 11-point deficit allows the trailing team to settle for a field goal if necessary and still have a chance to tie the game with a touchdown and two-point conversion. A 12-point deficit requires the trailing team to score two touchdowns.
Vrabel, the NFL’s 2025 Coach of the Year, has not been asked about his decision to kick the extra point. It’s a decision that’s hard to explain.
The mystery has been solved.
More accurately, the prediction has been resolved. As to the $24 million Kalshi question of whether actor Mark Wahlberg attended Super Bowl LX, the winning answer was “no.”
That’s the word from David Purdum of ESPN.com, who had initially flagged the fact that Wahlberg was the most popular selection for wagers as to whether he’d show up for Seahawks-Patriots in Santa Clara on Sunday.
The money bet on Wahlberg showing up exceeded the wagers on 31 other actors and politicians combined.
And so, no, Wahlberg wasn’t there. Unless he was wearing a really good disguise.
If he truly wasn’t there, Wahlberg was surely happy to miss it. As a Patriots fan, there was hardly anything about the game for Wahlberg to cheer about.
The Dolphins have brought in a cornerback.
Miami announced on Wednesday that the club has signed Miles Battle.
Battle, 26, was on the Patriots’ practice squad and became a free agent after Super Bowl LX. He appeared in five games for New England this season. He was on the field for 54 special teams snaps and 29 defensive snaps.
Battle has also spent time with the Chiefs. He went undrafted out of Utah in 2024.
Cornerback Christian Gonzalez’s play was a bright spot for the Patriots in an otherwise dark Super Bowl LX and the team has a chance to ensure Gonzalez remains in the lineup for years to come over the offseason.
Gonzalez finished his third season with the loss to the Seahawks, which means that he will be eligible for a new contract ahead of the 2026 campaign. While speaking to the media from the team’s facility on Tuesday, Gonzalez made it clear that he’d like to see that happen.
“Oh, yeah, no doubt,” Gonzalez said, via Mark Daniels of MassLive.com. “This is where I got drafted, and I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
Gonzalez had four tackles and three passes defensed while keeping offensive player of the year Jaxon Smith-Njigba from making a major impact in the Super Bowl and he had the game-sealing interception in the AFC Championship Game. He reliably locked down his opponents throughout the regular season as well, so the Patriots are likely to be interested in making sure he’s around for a while as well.
They could exercise their fifth-year option on the 2023 first-rounder’s contract to lengthen the window to reach an extension and their plans for dealing with Gonzalez’s contract should come into focus in the next few months.
