FOXBORO - Mike Vrabel isn’t pretending the Patriots can solve the Seahawks with a few episodes of Hard Knocks and a couple of notes from the offseason.
New England has watched what it can, sure, but Vrabel made it clear this week that the show only reveals so much. The Patriots’ head coach said the team has taken a look, but not as if it’s uncovering the whole operation.
"I think we go through it," New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel said this week. "It's not much that, it's not like you get the operation.
I'm sure they have content and they can control the content. But we take a look at it just to see what's going on."
That matters because the Patriots are about to open the NFL season against the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks, the same team they faced in Super Bowl LX. The matchup has been on New England’s radar for months, and it comes with some rare company: it’s only the second time since the 1970 NFL merger that a Super Bowl rematch has opened the next season, and the first since Carolina/Denver in 2016.
Still, Vrabel doesn’t sound like a coach trying to dress this up as something bigger than football. He’s been through opening nights under the lights before, including three Super Bowl-winning teams that started the season in primetime, and he doesn’t expect the Patriots to approach this any differently than they would any other game.
"Obviously that means that you either had a really good season or the people that you're playing had a really good season," he said. "There'll be a lot of energy there.
We'll have to be ready for the environment and we'll have to be really sound in our operation and everything that we do. The magnitude of it is always important.
"There's not that many games. Every game is critically important. It'll be a great test and a great challenge for us to be able to go on the road and do that early in the season."
The Patriots have known this was coming since the schedule came out in May, but that didn’t mean they spent the entire spring and summer locked into Seattle prep. Vrabel said the staff had to be careful not to overload the team with Seahawks-specific work too early, choosing instead to keep the focus on fundamentals and on what New England wants to be in all three phases.
"I think you have to be careful how much you do early on. I don't know how much gets retained, but you try to focus on fundamentals, our offense and what it is that we're trying to do in all three phases," Vrabel said.
"Then there were times during training camp or times last week that we tried to do stuff. But I think you just have to be careful.
It's the first game.
That approach lines up with what helped last year’s group, and Vrabel believes it should carry over for the 2026 team as well.
The Seahawks still bring plenty to the table, even with running Kenneth Walker gone in free agency and Jake Bobe sidelined by a torn ACL. Under head coach Mike Macdonald, quarterback Sam Darnold and a defensive front that commands attention, Seattle still looks capable of walking into Week 1 and leaving with a win.
Vrabel said the Patriots expect some changes because of the new coordinator, but also know there will be familiar pieces in the mix.
"They got a new coordinator, and some things will be different. I'm sure they'll have some plays that are similar that they like and I think their defensive structure may be the same, it may not. It's a good defense."
The film matters. The prep matters.
But Vrabel’s message is pretty simple: the Patriots can’t get caught staring at last year’s ending. They have to get ready for the opener in front of them.
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