Patriots Clips
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
Seventeen weeks from tonight, the 2026 NFL season will begin. It will reportedly begin the same way the 2025 NFL season ended.
Jordan Schultz reports that the Seahawks will host the Patriots on Wednesday, September 9. It will be the first game of the next regular season.
If the report is accurate, it’ll be the first Week 1 Super Bowl rematch in a decade. The 2016 season began with an immediate rematch of Super Bowl 50, which the Broncos won over the Panthers. Denver won the second game, 21-20, thanks to a missed 50-yard field goal from Carolina kicker Graham Gano in the final 10 seconds of the game.
Seattle won Super Bowl LX. The game didn’t seem nearly as close as the 29-13 final score would suggest. It felt, frankly, like a 1970s-style Super Bowl suffocation; if they had played 10 times, the Patriots likely wouldn’t have won once.
Now, the Patriots will reportedly get an immediate chance to do it again. And not at a neutral site, but in Seattle. On the night the Seahawks hang a banner, a ritual the Patriots know very well.
Given that five of Seattle’s nine home opponents for 2026 have already been committed elsewhere for Week 1 (49ers, Rams, Giants, Cowboys, Chiefs), only four options remain for Week 1: the Cardinals, Chargers, Bears, and Patriots. The official announcement of the opening game will come by 8:00 p.m. ET on Thursday night.
Patriots safety Kevin Byard, who joined the team earlier this year, has been reunited with coach Mike Vrabel. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Byard said he sees no differences between the Vrabel who worked with Byard in Tennessee and the Vrabel who is moving forward amid a controversy that continues to generate periodic developments.
“[He’s] the same old guy, honestly,” Byard said, via Karen Guregian of MassLive.com. “He’s the same guy that I recognize from being back in Tennessee, a guy that’s full of energy, coaching the entire team, running back and forth from offense, defense, special teams. I don’t see a difference whatsoever.”
On Tuesday, Byard said Vrabel got involved in punt drills.
“He’s the loudest voice on the field,” Byard said. “Just coaching the guys, making sure guys technique is good, but at the same time, praising them when they do very well. . . . It’s definitely the same guy I recognize from Tennessee.”
Receiver Romeo Doubs, who hasn’t previously played for Vrabel, is equally impressed.
“I love him,” Doubs said. “Very energetic dude. A player’s coach, because I know at some point in his career, he’s played some really solid football here.
“It’s rare when you get a head coach who obviously was a player in this league, and worked his way through the ropes to be a really solid head coach. . . . I’m just very blessed and fortunate to be around him.”
For Vrabel and the Patriots, the best outcome is for everything unrelated to football to calm down. As of three weeks ago, the situation reached a tipping point that impacted the team, given that Vrabel missed the third day of the draft. If the drip-drip of photo and video drops from TMZ and the New York Post slows to a trickle, and if the other party to the situation doesn’t do a sit-down with Oprah (or whoever), there’s a chance this will all be fading away by the time Week 1 rolls around.
Patriots seventh-round linebacker Quintayvious Hutchins was charged with misdemeanor assault and battery after an incident in a Boston College dorm on Tuesday night.
WBZ reports, via a police report, that officers were called to a dorm to intervene in an argument between a man and a woman. The report cites a witness account that Hutchins grabbed the woman’s neck during the argument and that they were also pushing each other.
“We are aware of the report involving Quintayvious Hutchins,” the Patriots said in a statement. “We take these matters very seriously and are in the process of gathering additional information. We will not have further comment at this time.”
The police report also notes that the woman did not want pictures of her neck taken and said she was “OK” in her own statement.
Hutchins, who played at Boston College, was arraigned on Wednesday morning and released on his own recognizance after pleading not guilty.
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
When the Seahawks won Super Bowl LX, there were nine potential options for the Week 1 season-opening game in Seattle. The list is now down to four.
All NFC teams have nine home games this year. The Seahawks are due to host the 49ers, Rams, Cardinals, Giants, Cowboys, Chiefs, Chargers, Bears, and Patriots.
With the 49ers and Rams set to play in Australia on Thursday, September 10, with the Cowboys and Giants slated for Sunday night, September 13, and with the Chiefs hosting the Broncos on Monday, September 14, only four options remain to be the road team on Wednesday, September 9: Cardinals, Chargers, Bears, and Patriots.
A Super Bowl rematch wouldn’t be unprecedented. Ten years ago, the Panthers and Broncos crossed paths in the first game of the season, after Denver beat Carolina in Super Bowl 50. The Broncos held on to win the game, 21-20, when Panthers kicker Graham Gano missed a 50-yard field goal with nine seconds to play.
Unless the league announces the opponent before then, the team that will be present for the Seahawks to hang their latest banner will be known on Thursday night at 8:00 p.m. ET.
When Romeo Doubs signed with the Patriots in March, he moved to the top of their depth chart at wide receiver but he may not be there at this time next month.
The Patriots are expected to trade for Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown after June 1 and that would move Doubs down the pecking order in the first year of the four-year, $68 million deal he signed in New England. That might not have been exactly what Doubs had in mind after years in a crowded Packers receiver group, but he said on Tuesday that “love to have [Brown] here.”
“I was true to my word when I came here that there is no No. 1 guy in this offense,” Doubs said, via Mark Daniels of MassLive.com. “So, whatever it is I have to do, whether it’s playing into the strength more or playing on the backside every here and now, or even having [revolving roles], which I’m really familiar with because I’ve done it in Green Bay also. I’m open to all roles. That’s just part of this league. You know, the more you can do, the more you can do for the team, the more you show for yourself, just things of that nature.”
Stefon Diggs led the Patriots with 85 catches for 1,013 yards on their way to an AFC title in 2026, but a Brown/Doubs combo might unlock even more space to grow the passing game this year.
As the saying goes, it’s better to seek forgiveness than ask for permission. As it relates to the annual team-by-team schedule-release videos, the NFL does not require that permission be obtained.
“Upon request, the league will review club videos,” a league spokesperson said via email. “There’s no mandate to submit their videos in advance. The league provides best practices and insights to the clubs during ongoing all-32 club meetings.”
That’s always been the case. However, last year’s video from the Colts was quickly deleted because the Minecraft-themed presentation lacked advance authorization from Microsoft, which holds the copyright to the Minecraft property. Also, this year’s schedule release comes at a time when plenty of teams that play the Patriots (and plenty that don’t) will be tempted to make an express or implied reference to the story of the offseason, especially after ESPN’s Inside The NBA did so in clear and obvious fashion.
Before Inside The NBA went there, it was our understanding that the Chargers — who are the masters of the schedule-release game and who play the Patriots this year — would refrain from addressing the situation. Given that Inside The NBA addressed the issue and the world continues to spin, maybe the Chargers will revisit their position.
The Patriots are filling out their roster with a defensive player.
New England has agreed to sign edge rusher Xavier Holmes, according to agency Exclusive Sports Group.
Holmes was a tryout player for New England at its rookie minicamp.
Holmes played the 2025 season at James Madison after spending four seasons at Maine. He registered 7.5 tackles for loss, 6.0 sacks, and an interception for JMU last season.
Social media is bad enough when the vitriol spewed there is reasonably rooted in objective fact. Nowadays, certain accounts will fabricate quotes for engagement. Some will hide behind the notion that it is a “parody” account, even when the supposed joke is far from obvious.
That happened recently to Patriots running back TreVeyon Henderson.
An account called “FootballCravee” posted a message with a screenshot of a tweet attributed to Henderson. The post included a biblical quote about marriage and adultery, with no specific reference to coach Mike Vrabel.
The only problem? Henderson never posted it.
Henderson has since pushed back, with this message: “I have never made a public statement on the Vrabes situation. Respectfully, please stop misspreading [sic] false information.”
The mere fact that Henderson interpreted the post as referring to Vrabel when it doesn’t even mention him is telling, but not surprising. It reconfirms how the story has lingered, and mushroomed, in the month or so since it first surfaced.
Roughly a week before the initial images of Vrabel with NFL reporter Dianna Russini were published, Vrabel addressed Henderson’s habit of posting quotes from the Bible on social media.
