On its own, there is no shame in the New England Patriots going on the road on Wednesday night and losing a 13-10 decision to the defending champion Seattle Seahawks. That is a tough environment to play in. Seattle is a great team. There is always added motivation for the home team and defending champion in the season-opening kickoff game.
In a vacuum, and as an isolated one-game sample, it’s fine. Even if it came against a backup quarterback (with Drew Lock replacing Sam Darnold five snaps into the game), and even if it came with Drake Maye having a shocking fourth-quarter meltdown.
But sports are not always viewed in a vacuum, and for the Patriots, it still leaves a lot of big questions that critics and doubters may have had for them coming into the 2026 season. Patriots still have to prove they can beat the NFL’s elite teams The big concern for the Patriots throughout much of the 2025 season was the reality that they played one of the weakest schedules in the modern NFL era. Their strength of victory and strength of schedule were both among the lowest marks in the league, and even though they had to win three playoff games against good teams to reach the Super Bowl, they weren’t always the most impressive showings.
They struggled to get through the Los Angeles Chargers in the wild-card round and had a massive stroke of good luck in the AFC Championship Game when the Denver Broncos lost starting quarterback Bo Nix.
None of this means those wins didn’t count or that the Patriots weren’t a worthy Super Bowl representative for the AFC. There are no easy games in the NFL, and you can only play the teams that the NFL tells you to play, and when you are supposed to play them.
Those games happened, they won them, and that is an accomplishment. But the issue comes down to sustainability and repeatability. Can they do it again, over another full season, against a schedule that is significantly tougher, and while still being able to win just about every close game where everything breaks your way? That’s where the question is going to come in, especially given some of the weaknesses the team has.
Head coach Mike Vrabel has not been shy about talking about the depth concerns he has with his roster, and they showed on Wednesday night that their offensive line still struggles at times in protecting Maye against aggressive pass-rushes and blitzes. If you think future opponents were not watching that game (and the Super Bowl) and not taking notes on what sorts of pressures worked, you are kidding yourself. They are about to see a lot of that until they prove they can block it.
The injury to wide receiver A.J. Brown is also a potentially big loss to the one position on the roster (wide receiver) that actually did have some depth in it.
Now the Patriots are not only 0-1 to start the season, dropping a close game against a good opponent, but their next three games are also against playoff teams from a year ago (Pittsburgh Steelers, Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills), with two of them coming on the road.
The pressure is going to be on to win at least two of those games to avoid a tough start that might put them into a little bit of a hole if they are not careful.
It’s a good team that accomplished a lot in 2025. But 2026 is a brand-new season, and there are still some big questions for the Patriots, and they still have to prove a lot.
