Mike Vrabel, Patriots should be treated as legitimate contenders

Since starting 1-2 over the first three games of the NFL season, first-year head coach Mike Vrabel and the New England Patriots have been on a roll. 

Vrabel, who won three Super Bowls with New England as a player, has the Pats looking like a Lombardi contender in his first year at the helm following a 28-23 Week 10 road win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that improved the Patriots to 8-2. New England's seven-game winning streak is its longest such streak since 2021. 

The Patriots have won those seven consecutive games in a variety of ways. They took care of business in blowout wins over the Dolphins, Panthers and Browns and barely scraped by against the Saints, Bills, Buccaneers and Falcons. Regardless of the manner in which they've put marks on the left side of the ledger, Vrabel has the Patriots looking like a legitimate threat to contend for a championship. 

Patriots don't back down in the face of adversity

Sunday's win certainly wasn't an easy one for the Patriots, who were up 28-16 with less than two minutes to play before Baker Mayfield and the Bucs made it a one-score game. But a recovered onside kick sealed the victory — much to the chagrin of the Tampa Bay crowd — and made it clear that New England is a team full of players who don't get rattled under pressure. 

"It's not always perfect, it's not always going to be perfect," Vrabel said in his postgame news conference. "But I love the way that they compete."

Through 10 games, New England has a 2.5-game lead over the Bills in the AFC East and is tied for the best record in football. For a team that has won six Super Bowls in the last quarter century, those are words its fans are used to hearing. But after a short drought of success in New England, Vrabel seems to have the Pats back on track to being a bona fide playoff threat.