We’re in December now, and rolling into Week 14 with this week’s Tuesday notes …
New England Patriots
There are a lot of things that can be said about the Patriots coming out of Monday’s 33–15 rout of the Giants. Many of them are different from what you might’ve said in August.
But one thing, as I see it anyway, has been consistent going all the way back to the summer. The reality, too, is that it’s consistent with what you saw over six years from the Titans. And that’s Mike Vrabel’s teams have an unmistakable playing style.
All things aren’t equal, of course. Drake Maye and Ryan Tannehill are different, as are TreVeyon Henderson and Derrick Henry, or Will Campbell and Taylor Lewan, or Milton Williams and Jeffery Simmons. How all-in all those guys are/were playing for Vrabel, though, is a clear and present commonality—and became even more clear Monday, with the Patriots, who’ve had great injury luck in 2025, playing without Williams and Campbell.
New England was fast and physical from the jump, immediately putting the Giants in a chase position. A long kickoff return gave the Patriots’ offense its first possession near midfield, without far to go to get in field goal range. Then, the special teams struck again, with Marcus Jones’s 94-yard punt return touchdown. A three-and-out punctuated by a borderline-but-statement-making hit by Christian Elliss on Jaxson Dart followed that. And the offense then took advantage of a short field created by a shanked punt to make it 17–0.
The Patriots, at that point, had run just 16 plays and scored three times, putting a two-win team with a rookie quarterback into that three-score hole. The game was, effectively, over.
Every cylinder was firing, and that, above talent, is culture. What every player or coach who’s played against the Patriots will tell you is that they play smart, fast and physical, like Vrabel’s teams in Tennessee. And if you talk to those guys who are on the other side of that fence, that are in it with Vrabel, they’ll tell you that’s no mistake.
Three years ago, NFL Films captured video of Vrabel greeting Titans center Ben Jones in the tunnel, after Jones played through a significant knee injury (he’d been unable to stand in the huddle at one point, yet missed only one play). The coach, in tears, hugged Jones and said, “I never seen anything like it. I have never seen anything like it. I love you like my f---ing own.” The clip went viral. A lot of people may have forgotten about it.
But that moment is the crux of what Vrabel builds. He’s in it—genuinely in it—with the people he works with. That’s why coaches such as Shane Bowen, Zak Kuhr and John Streicher have followed him, going all the way back to his start as a coach at Ohio State under Luke Fickell and Urban Meyer. It’s why players such as Harold Landry III, Robert Spillane and Jack Gibbens have come with him to Foxborough. It’s why there are still people in Tennessee loyal to him.
It sounds corny, but it goes deeper than football, too—with how he knows the names of the kids of his staffers and players, and how he’s there when people need him most (like he has been for DC Terrell Williams in his cancer battle this fall, or like he has been for dozens of NFL people when they get fired, or are going through things like Williams).
As I see it, the reciprocation of that is what you saw on the field Monday night.
It’s a team that plays with its hair on fire, maximizes its talent, follows its coaching and is a pain in the ass to face in just about every way. It’s happened fast, too, and that’s a good example of how on board everyone in that facility is with what Vrabel’s trying to build.
Again, maybe this is corny, but the Patriots are selling out for Vrabel, mostly because they know he’s doing the same for them.
New York Giants
On the other end of that result, a messy season got even messier Monday night.
The Giants’ seventh consecutive loss was different from the others. There was no blown fourth-quarter lead this time around, or heartbreaking ending. New York looked discombobulated from the start, and the Patriots made them pay for it. The Giants’ energy was nonexistent.
And maybe the strongest indication that this was coming came with the on-field absence of No. 3 pick Abdul Carter in the first quarter.
The rookie pass rusher has had issues all year with being late and/or missing team obligations. Now fired coach Brian Daboll fined Carter for it on multiple occasions. Interim coach Mike Kafka has been heavier handed with it, with the most recent benching coming after Carter was also sat down for the start of the Giants’ Week 11 game against the Packers.
Now, there’s nothing overly nefarious here. The Green Bay benching was triggered by Carter losing track of time—getting red-light therapy in the players lounge while the team started a walkthrough a few steps away on the practice field. Which might be excusable, if it didn’t keep happening. Leaders in that position group, captain Brian Burns primarily among them, have tried to get through to Carter. Coaches, obviously, have too.
That it hasn’t happened is an indictment on everyone, Carter included. The rookie had a reputation coming out of Penn State, fair or not, for being selfish and entitled, and NFL teams were well aware of it. He’s living up to it now. And the fact that the team hasn’t been able to reel him in, and ingrain how his actions the other six days of the week are costing him on game day, raises questions on a lot of other people there.
The Giants, by the way, are now 5–25 since the start of 2024, and haven’t won a game on the road in 14 months. They’ve fired five coaches in the past decade. The organization’s a shell of what it once was. Another coaching search is underway. And by the looks of Monday, whoever winds up in the job is going to have his work cut out for him.
Kickers as athletes
I had a really interesting conversation with Jets kicker Nick Folk on Sunday afternoon—after he drilled a 56-yard game-winner—on what’s happening at his position in 2025.
You’ve seen it, I’m sure. Kicks from 40 yards out are chip shots. Kicks in the 50s are routine. Kicks from beyond 60 aren’t completely out of the ordinary.
Like a lot of people, Folk first pointed to the league allowing kickers to prepare the K-balls ahead of time—I did ask him whether there’s something everyone is doing to the balls, or if different guys are doing different things, and he said he didn’t know. Then, Folk brought up an idea that I hadn’t. He believes there are simply better athletes playing the position.
“As the entire locker room gets bigger, faster, stronger—or even, you go down to high school, where everyone’s getting bigger, faster, stronger—if you want to play and you’re not the biggest, fastest, strongest, but you’re pretty fast and pretty strong, you go kick, because you want to play,” Folk said. “I was with Tennessee last year. We had a strength coach that was at the University of Arizona, my alma mater, and Tyler Loop obviously came from there. Now he’s with the Ravens. And I was asking him about Tyler.
“And he says Tyler Loop was like a 21.5-, 22-mile-an-hour guy. So the guy’s got explosion. You’re trying to keep up. That’s what it becomes. It’s just evolution, survival of the fittest.”
Folk then continued to say that there are “really good athletes” at the position now—then pointed to a guy whom he saw as a forerunner for that in his past, as a 19-year vet.
“I’m good friends with John Carney,” Folk said. “He played for 23 years. He was one of the first ones that I remember that actually took working out seriously. And talking to him about it, that’s what kept him around for so long. I just think these guys are doing that at an earlier age now. It’s just survival, to get on the football field when they’re young and they want to play—Well, I gotta be a kicker. So, all right.”
And here we are.
Joe Thuney
We had an item on the Bears’ offensive line in the Week 13 takeaways, and I did have one leftover from my talk with center Drew Dalman. It relates to what a brilliant move it was by Chicago GM Ryan Poles to trade for Joe Thuney, whom he was with in Kansas City for a year.
Thuney has started 158 of a possible 160 games over his 10 NFL seasons. He played, over his first nine seasons, chronologically, 100%, 100%, 100%, 99%, 97%, 99%, 98%, 97%, and 97% of his team’s offensive snaps. And this year, through 12 games, he’s right there again, having played in every one of his team’s 829 snaps on offense. That adds up to, if you’re counting, 10,713 snaps, and a stunning record of performance and dependability.
So, from experience, Poles knew what he was bringing into a room that he was rebuilding. Moreover, with so much turnover in that room, he bet, correctly, that it would trickle down.
“He’s an incredible guy, an incredible teammate, an incredible player,” Dalman said. “That’s instantly going to raise the level of the room when everybody sees how he works and how he performs. Just having a guy that does it the right way and plays as well as he does and is as good of a worker and teammate in the room, it makes it pretty natural that you’re going to want to follow his lead.”
Based on how the Bears are playing offensively, and specifically how well they’re running the ball, it’s pretty clear that everyone has.
Ben Johnson
While we’re there, Ben Johnson has really proved himself to be one of one.
The Lions brought back a guy, in John Morton, who was in the quarterback room with Johnson in 2022. Morton, who had previous play-calling experience, has since been stripped of play-calling duties. Meanwhile, Tanner Engstrand, Johnson’s right-hand man in Detroit, was passed over by the Lions, and went to the Jets with Aaron Glenn to get the chance to call plays, and he’s certainly had his fits and starts in his first year as an OC.
And that, to me, makes Johnson a little like Mike McDaniel, in that he’s not just the product of a system, and is tough to replace because he very much does things his own way.
Dallas Cowboys’ offensive line
One item to revisit: The Cowboys’ decision to draft guard Tyler Booker with the No. 12 pick was panned when it happened in April, with a lot of fans, predictably, wanting a skill-position weapon for a crew that had CeeDee Lamb and not a whole lot else. Dallas tried to calm the concerns of the fan base by imploring that another receiver could arrive in a different way.
That happened, of course, and we all know how the George Pickens trade has worked out.
And the decision on the front end is looking pretty good, too. Booker has been among the best guards in football this year, both in pass protection and run blocking, and Dallas’s future up front looks bright—with established starters at all five positions who are, from left to right, 24, 24, 24, 21, and 28 years old.
One calling card of the Jones family over nearly four decades of team-building has been heavy investment in the offensive line. Generally, those investments have worked out.
Minnesota Vikings’ quarterbacks
The Vikings made competitive offers to both Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones in March, and each left for the same reason: the chance to be someone’s long-term answer at the quarterback position. The reality was, for both, that a good season in a new locale (Seattle for Darnold, Indianapolis for Jones) would likely mean a runway to stick around a while, with no young quarterback standing in the way in those places.
Conversely, in Minnesota, the Vikings’ investment in J.J. McCarthy would complicate the future for anyone else in the quarterback room, even if that person were able to beat the 2024 first-round pick out to be the team’s 2025 starter.
Which, of course, is just another example of how you tether your fortunes and your future to a guy when you draft one that high at that position.
As a result, the Vikings could well be looking for competition for McCarthy again in 2026.
Flex scheduling
Finally, the NFL’s decision to flex Bills-Bengals back to 1 p.m. ET from the prime 4:25 ET window doesn’t look as great as it did a week ago, based on how Joe Burrow played on Thanksgiving, how important this game now is to Buffalo, and how the AFC North race has come back to the Bengals a bit.
Can’t wait for that one.
More NFL From Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Patriots Have Taken on Mike Vrabel’s Identity.
