In his first season as Patriots head coach, Mike Vrabel took over a team that had gone 4-13 two years in a row and took them to the Super Bowl. He’s undoubtably off to a good start.
But after a disappointing performance in Super Bowl LX, Vrabel said his team still has work to do.
“I like the foundation of it, and we’ll try to improve on it,” Vrabel said, via Mike Reiss of ESPN.
Vrabel noted that every team makes changes, and sometimes those changes mean moving on from players who contributed to them making the Super Bowl.
“There’ll be some difficult decisions that we’ll have to make, and we’ll try to do them with the team’s best interest in mind. As always, that’ll never change,” Vrabel said.
Those changes will likely revolve around older, more expensive players.
“As I was taught, we talk about the business of the NFL, we’re looking for the better, younger, cheaper player every day, and the players that we have are trying to not let that happen,” Vrabel said. “And that’s the dynamic. That’s the business of the National Football League.”
The Patriots are in good salary cap shape, but that doesn’t mean they’ll pay a player more than they think he’ll be worth in 2026 just because they appreciate the contributions he made in 2025. If they think they can improve the roster by moving on from some of the players who helped them get to the Super Bowl, they’ll do so.