Andrew Callahan: The Patriots have won 4 straight, so what's their ceiling now?

Andrew Callahan, Boston Herald on Oct 19, 2025

Published in Football

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BOSTON — Drake Maye spent his Friday night standing on the sidelines of a high school football game.

On Sunday, it looked like he was playing in one.

In his 19th start, Maye broke the Patriots’ franchise record for highest completion percentage in a single game with at least 20 throws. He sliced and diced Tennessee’s defense, then set it ablaze; a hibachi chef in a football helmet. Maye completed a cool 91.3% of his throws, something Tom Brady never, not once, managed over his 333 games and 20 years here.

What might Maye do next?

Only the football gods know for sure. Because who can say for certain where these Patriots are going?

This is beyond unexpected now, and inching closer to unbelievable.

The Pats have won four straight for the first time in four years. New England won more games than each of the last two seasons. Halloween, at last check, is still more than a week away.

Until then, the Patriots will now enjoy a second week atop the AFC East. Meanwhile, Maye has emerged as a dark-horse MVP candidate. Mike Vrabel has engendered as much buy-in as any Patriots head coach since prime Bill Belichick. A locker room divided for three straight years by poor play and rotten culture has healed.

“It starts with our coaches, and then the players that we have, we’re all close. I think this is the first team that the offense and defense are close,” third-year receiver DeMario Douglas said Sunday. “We’re close.”

Vrabel’s coaching staff is problem-solving, too. the Patriots’ dormant run game woke up Sunday and started sprinting, gaining eight yards, then 14, eight and eight more on the offense’s first four plays. Rhamondre Stevenson pounded out a season-high 88 yards and a touchdown on just 18 carries.

He didn’t fumble, either.

Even as Tennessee enjoyed a new coach bounce, scoring 10 points in what felt like 10 seconds for interim headman Mike McCoy, the Pats didn’t flinch. Confident, the Patriots waited; knowing their talent and discipline would last longer than the sugar high fueling the young Titans. Tennessee scored three points over the last three quarters.

Granted, the Patriots entered as touchdown favorites. But New England won by 18.

Historically, the mark of a good NFL team is how consistently and how convincingly it beats bad opponents. No playing with your food. No emotional letdowns. No surviving on lucky bounces and better health.

Just clean, merciless, fundamental football.

Two weeks ago, the Pats left New Orleans disappointed having had let the Saints hang around in a 25-19 win. Vrabel actually had to tell players in the locker room to enjoy it. No such message was needed in Tennessee.

Players celebrated their head coach at the center of an overjoyed locker room. Everyone knew why.

Vrabel, even if he wouldn’t admit it, got what he wanted: revenge on his former team, which has now won fewer games since firing him than he has in just seven weeks coaching the Patriots.

“I don’t care what he said,” Stefon Diggs said. “We wanted to win that game for him.”

Now, I don’t care what anyone inside that locker room or outside says: the Patriots are good again. And New England knows it.

Late Sunday, the Patriots owned the sixth-best point differential in the NFL. New England has sensed for a couple of weeks now that it's tracking for something more than a surprise playoff bid. Of course, the league’s softest schedule has, and will continue to, grease their skids straight into January.

But that doesn’t negate the fact Maye has raised the Patriots’ ceiling. Or playing regular, turnover-free football has elevated their floor. Or that fixing problems like their sloppy first-quarter defense and stagnant run game — at least for one week — gives reason to believe their floor and ceiling will rise higher as the season progresses.

Inevitably, the Pats will lay an egg one Sunday. Every team does. It might happen next week against Cleveland.

But the pain of any upcoming loss, particularly a bad one, will be softened by the joy of this start because the Patriots have proven it's better than almost anyone expected. Maye, Vrabel, the lot of them have raised the bar, and might just be getting started.

“There’s so much better football that we can play,” Vrabel declared in the post-game locker room. “It’s close.”

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