Patriots
“There’s a lot more that needs to be fixed in the organization than just the roster.”
One of the Patriots team planes owned by the Kraft family in 2018. AP Photo/Eric Gay
By Hayden Bird
March 3, 2025 | 2:19 PM
3 minutes to read
Despite Robert Kraft taking a personal interest, the Patriots’ grades from a recent (anonymous) NFLPA survey showed that the team is on a continued downward trend.The Patriots ranked 31 out of 32 teams in overall terms, receiving particularly bad marks for the team’s weight room (F), travel (F), and even ownership (D).Kraft, New England’s longtime owner, told reporters in 2024 he would be “very surprised if that didn’t improve” in the future. Yet the Patriots’ ranking has plummeted even farther in 2025.Granted, the Patriots should see an uptick when the planned $50 million practice facility (currently under construction) opens in 2026.Even with the new facility, NFL insider Albert Breer thinks the Krafts and Patriots organization needs to go deeper.“This survey has actually worked, to a large degree,” Breer noted during a Monday segment on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Toucher & Hardy.” “There are a lot of teams that have taken this to heart and have changed.”
“If the Patriots are making changes, how many of them are cosmetic, and how many of them are real?” Breer questioned. “They’ve made some changes, but is it just like, ‘Hey, we don’t want to be embarrassed in this area, or is there a philosophical change in the way that you do business? You are so far behind some of the teams in the league.”Reminded of the new practice facility that will likely improve players’ perception of the Patriots, Breer provided some larger, league-wide context. “I even look at some of the renderings of the practice facility, and I mean aesthetically it doesn’t look like…it feels like they should be doing a little bit more with it,” he said of New England’s plan. “I look at it and I’m like, ‘I’ve been to every one of these practice facilities, the Jets’ practice facility looks like a space station. The Ravens’ practice facility looks like a country club, the Vikings’ practice facility — which is brand new — looks like a college campus.”Breer reiterated the longstanding notion that the Patriots’ team infrastructure was held artificially low by Bill Belichick for many years, as the longtime New England legend preferred to keep a tighter staff with a more minimalist approach.That the Patriots were successful during Belichick’s time gave ownership a distorted sense of its place around the league.“That was very specific to Bill,” Breer said of New England’s unusually smaller-scale, Spartan setup.Beyond the immediately planned changes with the new facility, Breer also questioned the Krafts’ long-term commitment to spending more in order to win.“Are you going to take this survey to heart? Are you going to start building out the organization in a way that the Rams are built out, the Eagles are built out, the 49ers are built out, the Ravens are built out?” Breer asked. “Are you going to try to catch them organizationally, or is this just, ‘Well, we’ll hire Mike Vrabel, and he’ll be able to do it like Bill did, and we don’t need all the different things that all these other organizations have?’”“They’ve got a ton of catching up to do,” he concluded.With crucial offseason questions looming, the Sports Illustrated writer went further. In his view, the Patriots need more than simply a roster overhaul.“When I listen to people here talk, I hear about this or that free agent, or adding this or that guy in the draft, and thinking you’ll snap your fingers and it’s going to be better, and I’m going to tell you that there’s a lot more that needs to be fixed in the organization than just the roster.”There was one piece of news that New England fans might enjoy hearing.Per Breer, a single NFL team has responded negatively to the survey feedback, and it’s an AFC East competitor. “I would imagine there were some billionaires that looked at it the other way, that looked at it and said, ‘Well F these guys, how dare they complain about it,’ and started scaling back on certain things. The answer I got was that there was one owner who did that, and that was Woody Johnson,” Breer recalled. “The Jets, after the survey last year, there were actually some areas where they scaled back even though they didn’t do well on it.”
Hayden Bird is a sports staff writer for Boston.com, where he has worked since 2016. He covers all things sports in New England.
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