Some news and notes on this Tuesday:
1) NFL Schedule Release Date Coming: The NFL is set to announce the 2025 Regular Season Schedule one week from today, with the event set for May 14th at 8:00pm ET.
That’s when we’ll get to see how this upcoming season might unfold, along with predicting how things might go depending on how the league decides to place each match-up.
Since 2019, the league has been pushing the date back and the spot it’s in now seems to be where they like it. In 2019, it was released in mid April (4/17), before pushing it into May in 2020 (5/7), and it’s fallen into right around where it is now ever since.
New England’s opponents had already previously been announced, with the club set to play home games against its normal division opponents, along with visits from Carolina, Cleveland, Atlanta, NY Giants, Pittsburgh, and Las Vegas.
On the road, they’ll visit Tampa Bay, Tennessee, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and New Orleans, again, in addition to their normal AFC East foes.
Games that you can circle will likely be the Titans’ match-up, given the meaning it will likely have for new head coach, Mike Vrabel. Las Vegas will probably be another, as Josh McDaniels will likely be hoping to deal his previous team a loss. McDaniels will have the advantage of that one being at Gillette Stadium, while Vrabel will have to win his by going back to the place where he had plenty of success as a coach down in Tennessee.
However, the fact that we’ll soon know the road they’ll be going down should be fun to find out, especially for a football team with significantly more talent than it had a year ago. After a decent free-agency period along with a draft that seems to have significantly more promise this time around, hopefully, we’ll see this team make some noise and end two straight years where they’ve finished 4-13.
2) Patriots release trailer for upcoming film: The Patriots released a trailer yesterday, entitled “Forged in Foxboro,” which is an inside look at how they’re building this year’s football team.
It will reportedly appear across all of the team’s digital platforms, with the club clearly documenting what they’re probably hoping will be one of the most pivotal offseasons in franchise history.
They’ve already posted more content than we’ve seen in previous years, which has likely been done with the intention of trying to re-energize a fan base that has had to endure two straight seasons of losing football.
Still, if you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth checking out, and it will absolutely get you excited for the actual one whenever it’s released.
3) Jets pinning their hopes on Fields: It looks like Justin Fields finally has a team that believes in him, albeit one would have to think that the New York Jets likely weren’t his first choice.
However, that appears to be who the Patriots might be facing when the two clubs meet in 2025. New head coach Aaron Glenn has named Fields his starter, with backup Tyrod Taylor sitting behind him.
Taylor recently told ESPN’s Rich Cimini that he’s known Fields for a while and that the two have a good relationship. That relationship began before Fields arrived in New York, with the two also training together this offseason in Atlanta.
“We’ve been good friends throughout his time in the league as well,” Taylor said. “So I’m here to support and help the team win in any form or fashion, whether it’s me on the field or whether it’s me being able to shed some light and experience and coach guys through, whether it’s in the quarterback room or any other position. Any knowledge or experience that I could offer to the younger guys that helps the team win, at the end of the day, is what I’m here to do. I’m looking forward to doing that.”
The Patriots last faced Fields in that less-than-memorable game for former Patriots QB Mac Jones, which was likely a turning point in Jones’ career in New England. After suffering an ankle injury at the end of the game against the Ravens in Week 3, the Patriots ended up forced to start Bailey Zappe after then back-up Brian Hoyer suffered a concussion mere minutes into their Week 4 match-up in Green Bay.
Despite a 27-24 loss, Zappe held his own against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, which set the stage for him to start the next two games.
Zappe engineered two solid performances, blowing out the Lions 29-0 in Week 5 at Gillette Stadium, and then following that up with a 38-15 beatdown out in Cleveland the next week against the Browns.
That put the pressure on Jones to return, and on that rainy night on Monday Night Football, Jones, who was still hobbling with an ankle that hadn’t fully healed, couldn’t get anything going, and an interception saw him booed off the field as fans chanted Zappe’s name.
Head coach Bill Belichick then placed Jones on the bench, and Zappe entered and finished the game.
However, there were no miracles that night, and Fields managed to put up a decent performance in a 33-14 win by the Bears. Fields completed 9-of-13 (69.2%) for 133 yards and a touchdown in the first half through the air, along with carrying it 10 times for 74 yards and running another in for a TD to put the Bears up 20-14 at the half, with the Bears shutting out New England the rest of the way over the final two quarters.
For now, we’ll see if Fields can resurrect his career in New York, which will likely be a tough challenge given how things have gone there as of late. But with a new regime, anything’s possible, and it adds to the intrigue heading into when these teams meet later this season.
4) Rookie Numbers Revealed: The Patriots announced the numbers for this year’s rookie class on Tuesday, which is always one of the cool aspects of the annual draft additions.
Here’s the list from this year’s class.
#18 – Kyle Williams, WR – Washington St (R3, 69th overall)
#19 – Kobee Minor, CB – Memphis (R7, 257th overall)
#31 – Craig Woodson, S – California (R4, 160th overall)
#32 – TreVeyon Henderson, RB – Ohio State (R2, 38th overall)
#36 – Andres Borregales, K – Miami (R6, 182nd overall)
#43 – Bradyn Swinson, LB – LSU (R5, 146th overall)
#47 – Julian Ashby, LS – Vanderbilt (R7, 251st overall)
#52 – Marcus Bryant, OT – Missouri (R7, 220th overall)
#58 – Jared Wilson, C – Georgia (R3, 95th overall)
#66 – Will Campbell, OT – LSU (R1, 4th overall)
#92 – Joshua Farmer, DT – Florida State (R4, 137th overall)
One number that definitely stood out was the #32 jersey assigned to second draft pick TreVeyon Henderson. That number was previously worn by Devin McCourty, who was excited to see the rookie end up with his number.
After the numbers were announced, the former safety posted on X,”Can’t wait to see real speed in that 32 jersey.”
The undrafted players have yet to be announced, and the league hasn’t officially recognized the signings of any of the league’s undrafted players. So it looks like we might still have to wait to learn about those guys. But for now, barring any changes, the above will be the jerseys to look for should you attend training camp later this summer.
5) Maye excited to be working with McDaniels: With McDaniels now in the fold, things seem to be off to a good start with quarterback, Drake Maye.
Maye said last week that working with Josh has been a good experience for him so far, and learning some of the nuances of the offense has been a process that he’s enjoyed.
“Yeah, it’s been great. You know, I think, you know, the guys last year I really enjoyed, and so far, Coach McDaniels, it’s been awesome,” said McDaniels. “I think he, you know, his ways, he’s been an offensive coordinator, been head coach, does it at a high level.”
“His stuff works. Kind of proof is in the pudding. He’s coached a lot of different guys. He coached the best to ever do it. So it’s been pretty cool getting to watch, you know, old things Tom and see how he does it and, you know, a bunch of different guys played at a high level in the offense, you know, not just Tom. So it’s been cool to watch, and I’m kind of learning the ways and learning the kind of ins and outs of it.”
Maye said the biggest challenge so far has been getting used to the new terminology, but he added that turning the page on what they did during his rookie year has been the key to working through that for him so far.
“Yeah, just translating the language,” said Maye when asked bout it. “You know, I think a lot of the NFL is the same type of concept or same run game, just, you know, how they call it, how the verbiage, get rid of what we called it last year, and kind of install. Especially teaching these other guys and, you know, we try to stay ahead of the quarterback, so just teaching them, you know, the right verbiage and not try to revert back to, ‘Hey, we used to call it this, now we call it this.’ Just try to kind of switch the lingo completely and just kind of, you know, revert to the new way and kind of don’t speak in the past.”
Everyone remembers what McDaniels managed to do with Mac Jones and Cam Newton, with Jones finishing his rookie year winning 10 games and New England’s last playoff appearance. He also ended up as a Pro Bowl alternate and was in the running for offensive rookie of the year behind Cincinnati’s Ja’Marr Chase.
Maye is at a level far above Jones, which is what is going to make this year incredibly intriguing to watch. One thing worth noting is that with Jones, McDaniels was pretty fearless. He wasn’t worried about him making mistakes, including having Jones fire the ball back downfield against Dallas on that touchdown throw to Kendrick Bourne, which came just after Jones had thrown a pick-six on the previous drive.
Needless to say, with that in mind, don’t expect the same conservative approach we saw early on last year with Maye. Instead, we can probably expect the second-year QB to sling it, and it should be fun to see how McDaniels operates with him under center later this season.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
It will indeed be fascinating to see how/where McDaniels adjusts his old offense to suit this 2025 pats team and Drake Maye. The old offense worked under Brady but had significant challenges with getting players to learn it. Some players like a Joey Galloway couldn’t do it at all. WR’s having to read the D in lock-step with the QB on option tree routes made it hard to even get WRs on the field here in NE. Few like Welker walked on and acclimated fast. I always felt the pats ended up narrowing their draft board to a shorter list… Read more »