New England Patriots
Elite company for Drake Maye, a slice of history for Mike Vrabel, and several record-setting opportunities are on the table.
Drake Maye and Mike Vrabel look to help the Patriots win their seventh Super Bowl. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
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SAN FRANCISCO – Mike Vrabel kept a straight face when asked whether Super Bowl LX is a must-win game.
“A must-win? Yeah, I think every time that we go out is a must-win game,” Vrabel said at Monday’s Opening Night. “That’s kind of the attitude that I’ve always taken in the National Football League.”
Make no mistake, though, there will be huge stakes when the Patriots take the field against the Seahawks on Sunday in this Super Bowl rematch.
The Patriots have an opportunity to set the NFL record for most Super Bowl wins by a franchise. A seventh Super Bowl title would also tie them with Tom Brady, who won all six of the Patriots titles and grabbed an additional one in Tampa Bay.
There’s no better way to close out Year 1 of the Mike Vrabel-Drake Maye era than a Super Bowl victory. There will almost certainly be talk about the potential rebirth of the Patriots dynasty if they pull it off.
If they lose, it’s back to the drawing board with a youthful, promising core intact, after finishing one win short of claiming the ultimate football prize.
So, what will Sunday’s game mean for the franchise going forward? Here are five things at stake for the Patriots during Super Bowl Sunday.
Win or lose, records will be set
Nobody has played in the Super Bowl more than the Patriots. They already have the record with 11 Super Bowl appearances. They’ll push that record to 12 once the game kicks off on Sunday.
The Patriots have a 6-5 record in those 11 games. A win on Sunday would break New England’s tie with Pittsburgh for the most Super Bowl wins by a franchise of all time.
On the other hand, a loss to Seattle would drop the Patriots’ Super Bowl winning percentage down to .500 and break the Patriots’ tie with the Broncos for most Super Bowl losses by a franchise.
So, depending on how the game goes, they’re guaranteed to have either the most Super Bowl wins or the most Super Bowl losses ever.
Elite company for Drake Maye
There have only been nine quarterbacks to reach the Super Bowl in their second season. Four of them lost the game, four of them won it.
A Super Bowl win would put Maye on the second-year winner’s list with Brady, Kurt Warner, Ben Roethlisberger, and Russell Wilson. Brady and Warner went on to win multiple league MVPs. Brady and Roethlisberger have multiple titles. Maye would become the first second-year quarterback to win the Super Bowl since Wilson in 2014.
A Super Bowl loss would put Maye on the second-year Super Bowl losers list with Dan Marino, Colin Kaepernick, Joe Burrow, and Brock Purdy. None of them has a Super Bowl title. Marino is the only one with a league MVP.
A potential first for Mike Vrabel
A Patriots win would make Mike Vrabel the first person to win a Super Bowl with the same franchise as both a player and a coach.
Vrabel was a member of the Patriots’ first three championship teams in 2001, 2003, and 2004. This is his first Super Bowl as a coach. He made an AFC title game coaching the Titans in 2019, but fell to the eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs
The Patriots went from a disastrous 4-13 record to an appearance in the Super Bowl in one year under Vrabel’s leadership. He was named the NFL’s Coach of the Year earlier in the week.
A place among the NFL’s best defensive playoff runs
Sunday’s game will have a lot to do with how this Patriots defense is viewed historically.
So far, through three games, they are allowing 8.7 points per game, which is the best mark in the league this postseason.
The record is 3.3 points per game, which was set by the 1985 Bears. The last time a team allowed fewer than 12.5 points per game in a postseason was the 2002 Buccaneers.
New England is 12-0 in games (regular-season and playoffs combined) where Milton Williams and Christian Gonzalez were both healthy, according to ESPN.
The greatest single-season turnaround of all-time
A New England win would make these Patriots the first team to win the Super Bowl after going 4-13 the previous year.
The Rams won the Super Bowl in 1999 after going 4-12 in 2008. The Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2001 after going 5-11 in 2000. The 49ers won the Super Bowl in 1981 after going 6-10 in 1980.
But no one has ever done what these Patriots are attempting to do on Sunday. Going from four wins to 18 wins, including a Super Bowl victory in one season, is unprecedented.
Khari A. Thompson
Khari Thompson covers professional sports for Boston.com. Before joining the team in 2022, Khari covered college football for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.
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