Image courtesy of the New England Patriots
FOXBOROUGH – It’s a question every successful team has to try and answer this time of year.
‘When did you know this could be a special season?’
For some guys, it’s in training camp. For others, it starts in OTAs. Veterans often need to wait until the team faces some adversity later in the year to believe that particular squad has what it takes to continue playing into January.
Following the win over Miami on Sunday and then again on Monday morning, I asked a few players when they knew this Patriots team had the chance to complete a remarkable turnaround, finish 14-3 and suddenly become a true Super Bowl contender.
Their answers varied, but highlighted one thing:
The buy-in from everyone has been real for a long, long time.
Milton Williams: “I always go back to the Buffalo game earlier in the year. We’re still figuring things out as a team, or what we could look like. Those guys haven’t lost at home in however many games. We went in there and took care of business and you know, we just showed what we were capable of. Going against a quarterback like Josh Allen and a team like the Bills, they’ve been winning the division for I don’t know how many years in a row. But, for us to go in there and do that early in the season, that was the witting on the wall for what the future would look like for our team.”
Pop Douglas: “It’s a blessing. I haven’t been to the playoffs…when we was in meetings in like, April, we got close and most definitely, I could tell this was a special group. The room got close and it’s been good.”
Kyle Williams: “You know, it’s kind of hard. You see each other against each other and you’re like, ‘ok, this dude’s nice. This dude’s nice, he just made a hell of a play.’ But, you don’t really get to see it until we’re against somebody else. So, I think it was the first training camp practice we had against the (Washington) Commanders and we kind of gave it to them in those practices, and I said ‘we’re going to be special.’ Let’s keep the same energy, this same chip and we gonna be special. Look at us now.”
Jaylinn Hawkins: “I could tell (in OTAs) because of what Coach (Vrabel) was putting into the program. The messages, what we were doing, he brought us close, man. You could see the chemistry forming, out there playing for each other, congratulating each other. That’s what it’s about, man, that brotherhood. It’s a big thing. When everybody’s close and has that chemistry, it’s contagious and that helps the team be successful.”
Jack Gibbens: “I think…we’ve been kind of talking about it, we had said ‘unfinished business’ last week. We feel like our season kind of started in Miami and then, finishing last week. We faced a lot of adversity those first two games. I mean, the Raiders game didn’t go our way. The Miami game, it was hot. They were making some plays, we’d come back and make a play. That game, I just feel like we kind of came together as a team and were like ‘we’re going to find a way to find a way to win this game no matter what.’ I think being able to make some plays down the stretch in that game gave us a lot of confidence going forward and I feel like kind of cemented our identity, because it’s something you talk about until you go do it. I feel like that was really, kind of the first step in our journey and we’ve kind of just hit the ground running from there.”
Efton Chism III: “I think early on. I didn’t know…I knew we had good players, but it’s hard to tell how good we’re going to be because it’s my first year in the league, just trying to figure out like, what makes a good team good and not. So, just kind of picking up on good players, great leaders and then training camp, we started getting more towards the preseason and stuff like that, I was like ‘man, I think we’re going to be pretty good.” Then, it just kind of ended up taking off.”