Are the Patriots a 10-win team? Curran and Keefe weigh in
Are the Patriots a 10-win team? Curran and Keefe weigh in originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Despite back-to-back 4-13 seasons, the New England Patriots will enter the 2025 campaign with reasonably high expectations.
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Those expectations are partly the result of overhauling the coaching staff, including hiring Mike Vrabel to replace Jerod Mayo as head coach and bringing Josh McDaniels back as offensive coordinator. The Vrabel-led Patriots also added premier talent at several positions of need, namely wide receiver (Stefon Diggs), defensive tackle (Milton Williams), linebacker (Harold Landry), and offensive tackle (Morgan Moses and first-rounder Will Campbell).
Last week's NFL schedule release only raised the expectations, with the Patriots having arguably the easiest 17-game slate in the league. After going through New England's 2025 schedule, NBC Sports Boston's Patriots insider Tom E. Curran shared his win-loss record prediction.
'9-8, 10-7,' Curran said on Monday's Early Edition. 'Based upon the improvement in the offseason of presumably the quarterback, a better and more harmonious coaching staff with experience, every dysfunctional position group addressed — some in very determined terms like Milton Williams — and a really, really, really easy schedule, especially at home.
'So you add all those things up and you say, 'Hey, if everything goes as it seems like it should, you should win 10 games.' And I tried to be very judicious and objective and say, 'Look, this is an ass team. It's been an ass team for two straight years. Call it three.' … So for them to drastically improve to a 10-7 team, it seems beyond the pale, but that's where I am.'
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WEEI's Rich Keefe came to the same conclusion as Curran.
'I've got them 10-7 too,' he said. 'All the names coming in — the coaches staff as well as the players — you're like, 'Alright, they're going to be way better than they were last year.' And then you do the exercise that everybody does. You go through it, and you're like, 'Oh my God, Giants and Browns and all these horrible teams.'
'And to Tom's point, most of those bad teams are also at home. So I'm like, alright, they probably will lose one or two of those, but I'm not going to pick them to lose too many of them. And then the road schedule isn't brutal either. … So I've got them at 10 (wins), and there's no real upsets either. … So 10 (wins) and a playoff spot is not crazy.'
The Patriots have a golden opportunity to start the 2025 season off strong. Three out of their first four games are at Gillette Stadium, and they're against beatable opponents in the Las Vegas Raiders, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Carolina Panthers. Their one road game in that stretch is Week 2 in Miami.
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From there, their schedule doesn't get much tougher until late November, when they'll visit Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals. They will return home to face the lowly New York Giants on Monday Night Football, then prepare for difficult matchups against the Buffalo Bills at home and the Baltimore Ravens on the road.
If young QB Drake Maye takes the anticipated step forward in his development, and if the offseason additions play to their potential, there is a real chance the Patriots could end their three-year postseason drought. With the schedule working in their favor, anything less than a winning record would be a disappointment.
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