Well, Patriots haters had a good few years. New England owner Robert Kraft was quickly proven correct in jettisoning first-year coach Jerod Mayo for Mike Vrabel. The Patriots won 14 games, Drake Maye finished second in MVP voting, and they outlasted the AFC gauntlet of choking young quarterbacks and, somehow, Jarrett Stidham en route to yet another Super Bowl. Please don’t ask what happened in the Super Bowl — they’re still working on getting Josh McDaniels out of those chains Mike MacDonald threw on him.
A pair of major stories have defined the Patriots offseason. One of them, their everlasting pursuit of A.J. Brown that finally resolved in the affirmative after June 1, makes them a much better football team on the field. The other one, Vrabel’s affair with former The Athletic reporter Dianna Russini, is nothing but a red herring from a football perspective. (Well, probably, because a new video of them seems to drop every week.)
Where does it leave the Patriots? Well, they look like a good bet to be a playoff team again. And from there, as they can tell you last year, anything can happen.
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▶ 2025 New England Patriots Stats (Rank)Points per game: 28.8 (2nd)Total yards per game: 379.4 (3rd)Plays per game: 61.4 (18th)Dropbacks per game: 38.3 (18th)Dropback EPA per play: 0.31 (1st)Designed rush attempts per game: 26.1 (15th)Rush EPA per play: -0.09 (25th)
▶ How does A.J. Brown work here? Probably pretty well.
If you look at the fact that Brown is coming off the worst year of his Philadelphia career, he only cost a 2028 first-round pick, and he’s entering his age-29 season on a new team, it’s easy to create a compelling case to fade him. Let’s poke some holes in that: He was available this cheaply because teams don’t love the medicals on his knee. It was the same reason that then-Titans GM Jon Robinson didn’t extend him before Brown was traded to the Eagles in a move that, as far as we can tell, ended the entire Titans franchise.
Brown’s knee is worth keeping in mind — he has missed six games over the past two seasons — but I think it’s more of a note for dynasty leaguers. His knee is healthy as far as things stand today.
I’d be more worried about the new team if not for the fact that a) Maye is the quarterback here and b) Vrabel already coached Brown and knows exactly how to maximize his value. Brown is a YAC monster with the ball in his hands, and as long as you can deliver it to him over the middle, he’s going to generate first downs. For whatever reason (*cough*Kevin Patullo*cough*) the Eagles seemed unable to generate that kind of play last year. Brown had just 52 targets on in-breaking routes and was invisible on play-action passes.
I think his current ADP of around mid-third round is fair. He doesn’t have a conclusive case to go ahead of any of the players ahead of him (maybe Nico Collins), but I wouldn’t be stunned if he wound up as a WR1 this year either. Remember: This team plays the Jets and Dolphins twice and they were more than happy to run up the score by throwing the rock around. There are going to be ceiling games in reach for Brown this season.
▶ Passing Game
QB: Drake Maye, Tommy DeVito
WR: A.J. Brown, Kayshon Boutte (for now)
WR: Mack Hollins, Kyle Williams
WR: Romeo Doubs, DeMario Douglas
TE: Hunter Henry, Eli Raridon
There’s always some inherent risk of an outlier season coming back to earth. Ask Jayden Daniels in 2025. Ask Dak Prescott in 2024. C.J. Stroud was QB9 in 2023. I don’t think it’s completely out of the realm of possibility that Maye fails to live up to high QB1 ADP just because a) it’s his first year of that level of production and b) regression does come for us all.
But I can’t think of a reasonable reason why he would on paper. Maye’s rushing production keeps his weekly floor high, and the running game has not improved in a real way unless Alijah Vera-Tucker is both healthy and ready to turn back the clock, two big ifs. The defense probably has improved a smidge this offseason with the acquisitions of Kevin Byard and Dre’Mont Jones, but we’re in no real danger of finding out that the Patriots are a Seahawks or Texans-level defense that will help suffocate their own offensive counting stats. Brown will be by far the best receiver he’s ever played with. To me, QB1 overall is definitely in play. Maye was not far behind Josh Allen last year even though he lost rushing touchdowns 14-4. I subjectively would much rather target Maye at the top of the second tier of quarterbacks than try to bet on Lamar Jackson a few picks ahead of him. Maye has better weapons, and it just feels safer after Jackson’s sack-filled, lost season.
Romeo Doubs is a hard player to get a handle on, but as he’s currently going outside of the top 100 on every site I can see, you do get quite a discount on what should be the No. 2 weapon in the passing game. I like the role as a slot weapon on third down — something he didn’t get to do with Jayden Reed taking that role for the Packers often in Green Bay. Doubs had a 73.3 percent catch rate in the slot on 81 routes run last year per NFL Pro, and got much more separation there. Is it league-winner upside? Maybe not. But I wouldn’t be startled to come to my senses in November and realize I’m ranking Doubs as a WR2.
With that talent influx comes the end of some fairly interesting FLEX scams last year — I doubt I’ll look up and find Mack Hollins in the sites of the FLEX Finder in 2026. Ditto DeMario Douglas. I have the feeling Kayshon Boutte will need a team change before we consider him in fantasy football this year. Kyle Williams never got the run to be part of the conversation. All of these players will be interesting waiver plays if one of the top two receivers gets hurt, but I don’t think Brown and Doubs are getting paid to watch Boutte put up 8/92/2 on the Jets or something like that.
Hunter Henry is a more nebulous play with the talent additions, but I can’t tell you to not play one of the few tight ends in a good passing offense that gets good volume. Henry is amazingly consistent at generating 400-700 yards a season with an outsized touchdown rate. Is that what I’m excited about at TE1? No. Is it a reasonable play at this point? I think so. And perhaps with Eli Raridon the only real competition in town after the sneaky preseason IRing of Julian Hill and Austin Hooper fleeing for Atlanta, Henry can manage a high enough snap rate to be a weekly solid-floor-and-maybe-a-TD play.
▶ Running Game
RB: Rhamondre Stevenson, TreVeyon Henderson, Jam Miller
OL (L-R): Will Campbell, Alijah Vera-Tucker, Jared Wilson, Mike Onwenu, Morgan Moses
Let’s talk about it. I’m not sure what kind of role TreVeyon Henderson is going to carve out for himself in his second season, and I suspect we won’t really get a good indication of how things are going until training camp. Henderson had no claim to third-down duties when it counted last year. None. Zilch. We even had a Rhamondre Stevenson fumblegeddon start last year and the best Henderson could give you was a few spike weeks fueled by explosive touchdown runs where he didn’t even hit 20 carries. Weirdly, given Henderson’s body type, he did see the majority of the red zone work in 2025, outrushing Stevenson there 34-26. (He lost the goal-line carries 10-6 to Stevenson.)
Call me a flip-flopper in August if we get some better information on how the third-down role unwinds, but right now, given what we saw in the playoffs, I wouldn’t be excited about investing a top-50 pick in Henderson. Am I really that much more excited about Henderson than I am about RJ Harvey 30 picks later? I just don’t see the situation as meriting a premium selection just because we assume that Stevenson is the new Ezekiel Elliott.
As for Stevenson? He’s a murky RB2 for me. The volume looks safe. The running attack the Patriots have doesn’t figure to get a ton better in 2026. He’s of course going to miss a few games — he played in 41 of a possible 51 games over the past three seasons. I do think the correct way to use these backs would be to get Henderson more playing time, but I don’t run the Patriots and it’s clear they prefer Stevenson’s blocking and he’ll manage more passing-game success than you might think because of that. I just don’t see him as a good bet for any real upside outcomes.
▶ 2026 New England Patriots Win Total
DraftKings Over/Under: 10.5
Pick: Over (+115)
Yes, it’s always a good bet to fade the team that went from four wins to 14 the next season. But have you seen this division? The Jets are starting Geno Smith and have zero backup plans. The Dolphins have committed to one of the NFL’s saddest rebuilds. That feels a lot like starting 4-0. (Or at least 3-1.)
New England had one of the easiest schedules in NFL history last year. FTN Almanac 2026 had their 2025 schedule as the fourth-easiest since 1977. This year’s it’s more average. I don’t exactly think the Patriots are about to dominate the league — nor do I think they’re even locks to win the division — but to get plus odds with this quarterback, with a head coach who clearly knows what he’s doing on the field, feels like a gift.