Patriots’ Super Bowl embarrassment a lesson and reminder

SANTA CLARA, CA − Apparently, when you get into a deep Super Bowl hole, like the New England Patriots did nine years ago, you need a Hall of Fame coach – oops, a Hall of Fame-adjacent coach – to make some in-game adjustments that maybe include asking your typically capable defense to make a few momentum-shifting plays.

Apparently, when you get into a deep Super Bowl hole, like the New England Patriots did nine years ago, you need a Hall of Fame quarterback – well, let’s see what the Canton committee thinks in a few years of that guy the Pats used to have – to spark his team at large and offense specifically when there’s no more time to waste to put a needed bundle of points on the board.

But Bay Area native and New England legend Tom Brady was merely a spectator Sunday at Levi’s Stadium, where the Patriots were embarrassed 29-13 by the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl 60. (And maybe he was wise not to claim a rooting interest, given the minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders just watched his new head coach, Seattle offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, help dismantle his former team.)

Ex-Pats expat coach Bill Belichick, who left the organization two years ago, was nowhere to be found – perhaps helping girlfriend Jordon Hudson pick out her next outfit somewhere in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

If ever there was a reminder that the 2025 Patriots were not the 2001 Patriots – or the 2003, 2004, 2014, 2016 or 2018 Patriots – then it was Sunday, when the new edition Pats were swallowed whole by the stifling Seahawks in what was a near-historically bad Super Sunday performance.

But let this be a time of remembrance.

Belichick’s brilliance has certainly been taken for granted in recent weeks – and maybe years. And if you think he was riding Brady’s coattails all those years, go back and look at his brilliant defensive game plans in Super Bowl 25 against the heavily favored K-Gun Buffalo Bills – he was the New York Giants coordinator then – or his Super Bowl 36 master class against the very heavily favored “Greatest Show On Turf” St. Louis Rams. The brilliance of the two-decade dynasty Belichick and Brady lorded over certainly retains most of its luster – and maybe got some added polish with all those Super Bowl 49 replays, when they snatched victory from the jaws of the ‘Legion of Boom’ Seahawks.

But let’s not use Sunday’s blowout as an excuse to give the 2025 Patriots short shrift – and, actually, let’s appreciate them, too.

The Mike Vrabel-Drake Maye Patriots are arguably further ahead of schedule than the Belichick-Brady Patriots were in 2001. We’re talking about a 2025 Pats team with a first-year head coach, a second-year quarterback and 30 new players on the roster compared to a year ago – a record number for a Super Bowl entry. But this was a team − one that had won eight games combined between the 2023 and ’24 seasons − that went 17-4 and reclaimed the AFC East throne that had been abdicated to the Buffalo Bills following Brady’s flee south to Tampa in 2020.

And New England will doubtless be better next year – what with a year of experience, a valuable Super Bowl lesson, another first-round pick plus additional rookie influx, $40 million or so in projected cap space to chase a needed pass rusher like Trey Hendrickson and, who knows, maybe they try to broker a reunion with Vrabel and Philadelphia Eagles wideout A.J. Brown, who played for him with the Tennessee Titans.

But let’s appreciate what they did and who they are despite their Super embarrassment.

And let’s appreciate who they followed and the standard of excellence they’re chasing – and may it be appropriately immortalized by the time the next Patriots team plays in a Super Bowl.