Eagles General Manager Howie Roseman said this week that wide receiver A.J. Brown is a great player and that he doesn’t believe in improving teams by subtracting talent like that from the roster, but he also said that he’ll listen to calls from other teams about any player so there’s likely to be more chatter about a potential trade involving the wideout in the coming weeks.
Some of that speculation will be related to the Patriots. Oddsmakers have installed New England as the likeliest place for Brown to play other than Philadelphia and the presence of Mike Vrabel has a lot to do with that. The Patriots head coach and Brown were together with the Titans and Vrabel said on Wednesday that the relationship remains a significant one.
“It has meant a lot,” Vrabel said, via a transcript from the team. “I’ve watched him grow. I’ve watched him mature. I’m proud of him, proud of the father that he is. I’m proud of the husband. That has nothing to do with where he plays or where he played. Those are the things that are important. We reach out and text each other during the good things that happen to each other. Sometimes things don’t go so well for the people that you’re close with, and you text for those as well. It’s a two-way street of support and reminders of what got us to where we are here today.”
Vrabel also held a session with local reporters in Indianapolis on Wednesday and he was asked specifically about pursuing a trade for Brown. Vrabel said, via Karen Guregian of MassLive.com, that “we’ll look at everything that we can possibly look at to add to our roster” before adding that there’s “a lot of back and forth” involving compensation in trade discussions.
It remains to be seen if the Eagles will be engaging in such conversations, but Vrabel’s history with Brown and the makeup of the Patriots’ receiving corps suggests that they could be an interested partner if the door is open.
Patriots Clips
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel says the league has to make its instant replay process better.
Vrabel, a member of the NFL Competition Committee, said that it’s unacceptable that the standalone prime time games get more attention from the New York officiating office than the early Sunday afternoon games, when the league’s officiating office is stretched thin.
“We need to evaluate staffing at that level to make sure every game is treated the same, whether it’s the prime-time game on Sunday night, the prime-time game on Monday or Thursday or whether it’s those 1 o’clock games that is the lifeblood of our league,” Vrabel said. “So I think if we need to figure out staffing issues that need to be taken care of so those things are looked at and we’re not letting anything slip. We need to be really good in replay. There’s going to be mistakes on the field, just like there’s mistakes in execution by the players, mistakes by the coaches, there’s going to be mistakes by the officials. There are. And they need to be decisive, they need to believe in what they’re calling. But saying that there’s going to be mistakes, we have to get to a system in replay that is as close to 100 percent accurate as possible.”
NFL Executive VP of Football Operations Troy Vincent acknowledged this week that the volume of replay reviews in the 1 o’clock Sunday window led to some reviews being wrong. That’s a problem the league needs to fix.
The Patriots made inside linebackers coach Zak Kuhr their full-time defensive coordinator this offseason. Kuhr called the defense after defensive coordinator Terrell Williams was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Head coach Mike Vrabel addressed the promotion of Kuhr and the role for Williams during his media availability at the Scouting Combine on Wednesday.
“I think there’s a lot of things in play there,” Vrabel said. “I think we’re just trying to figure out what’s best defensively for us, what’s best for the staff organizationally, and then being able to get everybody’s strengths where they need to be. So, I know Terrell will be able to help me in a lot things, help the football team, help the defense to continue to be a big, big role in that. And then just seeing where things progress with Zac and the comfort level that we had there. So, that’s where we ended up.”
Williams will continue working for the team in a high-ranking role, but Vrabel said the title is yet to be determined.
“I don’t want to sit here and misspeak [before we] figure out where that ends up,” Vrabel said. “I’ve got a plan for him, and the vision is better than the title necessarily.”
Will Campbell’s arm length was a frequent talking point at the 2025 Scouting Combine and it came up again this year.
Campbell was a Patriots first-round pick last year and he was installed as their left tackle despite his arms being a bit shorter than teams usually like for players at the position. Whether that’s the right spot for him became a question after the Super Bowl because of how much he struggled against Seahawks pass rushers during New England’s loss, but vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf downplayed any concerns in Indianapolis on Tuesday.
Wolf said Campbell “has a set of skills that enable him to play with that arm length” and that the team believes a torn ligament in his knee was the main reason why his play fell short at the end of the season.
“When he came back from that injury, I personally didn’t see the same level of lower body strength that you saw before the injury. I think the film would attest to that,” Wolf said, via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com. “He probably had three of his four worst games in the playoffs. Before that, I thought Will played really well all year.”
Head coach Mike Vrabel said the Patriots are not considering moving Campbell to guard or anywhere else in the wake of the Super Bowl loss, so they’ll be banking on improved health and more experience leading to better performance in 2026.
One of the hot topics on Tuesday at the Scouting Combine was the future of Eagles receiver A.J. Brown. And while the Eagles are saying all the right things regarding Brown’s future in Philly, odds as to his next team have emerged.
At DraftKings, the current favorites are the Eagles, at -130.
Next on the list is the Patriots, at +275. The Chargers land at +750, with the Bills at +900.
A return to the Titans is a +1000 bet. The Raiders are +1400, with the 49ers, Dolphins, and Ravens at +1600.
Eagles G.M. Howie Roseman made it clear that they’ll listen to any team that makes any offers about Brown or any other player. The question is whether another team will make the Eagles an offer they won’t refuse.
Drake Maye needed a pain-killing injection in his right shoulder before Super Bowl LX.
The Patriots quarterback didn’t play as he had in the regular season, going 27-of-43 for 295 yards with two touchdowns, two interceptions and a lost fumble. How much did the NFL’s No. 1 scoring defense in the Seahawks have to do with that, and how much, if any, had to do with his injured shoulder?
General Manager Eliot Wolf dismissed Maye’s shoulder as an excuse for the team’s offensive struggles.
“I think that’s probably a question better asked to him,” Wolf said. “I didn’t feel that way. I just felt like we just couldn’t get into rhythm offensively.”
Maye’s second season has the Patriots excited about the future.
He completed an NFL-best 72 percent of his passes for 4,394 yards with 31 touchdowns and eight interceptions in finishing second in MVP voting.
“Satisfied is a tremendous understatement,” Wolf said. “Drake made a ton of progress in a lot of areas, not only at the start of the season, but throughout the season. I think people forget that he’s 23 years old and there’s a been a lot on his shoulders, and there will continue to be with the expectation that it has being the quarterback of the New England Patriots. But I’m just really excited about him, his toughness, his competitiveness. He’s always the same guy. Obviously, there are areas on the field that he’s going to improve, and he’s going to work with coach [Josh] McDaniels and [quarterbacks] coach [Ashton] Grant and get those things taken care of.”
Running back Antonio Gibson’s time is up in New England.
The Patriots announced Gibson’s release on Monday afternoon. Gibson appeared in five games for the team in 2025 before missing the rest of the season with a torn ACL.
Gibson’s release clears over $3 million in cap space for the Patriots. He will still account for $1 million in dead money.
Gibson ran 25 times for 106 yards and a touchdown while also returning a kickoff for a touchdown in his five appearances during the regular season. He had 120 carries for 538 yards and a touchdown during the 2024 season.
Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson remain the top two backs for New England.
The Patriots have added a new coach to Mike Vrabel’s staff.
Pete Thamel of ESPN.com reported that B.J. Edmonds would leave his post as the Southern Miss running backs coach to join the Patriots. Thamel’s colleague Mike Reiss reports that the Patriots are listing Edmonds as a defensive assistant.
Edmonds worked as a coaching intern for the Patriots last summer and had only been in his role at Southern Miss for a short time before opting to make the move to the NFL.
Edmonds worked as a defensive analyst at Duke for the last two seasons and he was an assistant at Utah State for three years before joining the Blue Devils.
Patriots receiver Mack Hollins was having a solid 2025 season when he suffered a lacerated spleen in December, causing him to miss the last two regular-season games.
When he went out, Hollins had registered 46 receptions. He needed four more to secure a $400,000 incentive in his two-year contract.
With Hollins returning in the postseason to help propel the Patriots to Super Bowl LX, the franchise has now made a gesture to get Hollins that extra $400,000.
Per Tom Pelissero of NFL Media, New England added a $400,000 signing bonus to Hollins’ contract to honor that incentive.
In his first year with the Patriots, Hollins reached 550 yards with two touchdowns in 15 games with 13 starts. He then caught six passes for 129 yards with a TD in his two postseason games — returning for the AFC Championship Game before playing in Super Bowl LX.
Hollins is under contract with New England for 2026.
The dip in the ratings for Super Bowl LX wasn’t as big as initially believed.
Nielsen has revised the final viewership for the Patriots-Seahawks championship game across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+ from 124.9 million to 125.6 million. It’s an increase of 700,000 viewers.
“This update is due to the fact that a Big Data provider did not properly collect data from its devices on February 8, which impacted the Big Data + Panel count,” Nielsen said in a press release.
Super Bowl LIX averaged 127.7 million. That number didn’t include Nielsen’s new metric for measuring out-of-home viewership.
It’s still the second-biggest audience in U.S. TV history. The top 12 are Super Bowls; the final episode of M*A*S*H is the only top-20 show of all time that isn’t a Super Bowl.
