The Patriots (11-2) did what the Patriots have done all season long on Monday night, beating the Giants (2-11) 33-15 to become the first team in the NFL to 11 wins this season.
It was yet another convincing victory for a team that has continued to exceed expectations every step of the way in 2025, dominating on both sides of the ball in an effort that bumped the Patriots in the Super Bowl futures market to +1100 - tying them with Buffalo (8-4) for the fifth best odds in the NFL, according to OddsTrader.
Outside of Drake Maye continuing to look like an MVP (now the betting favorite), New England’s defense looked fast, physical and capable of competing with anyone in the league. Even without their best defensive tackle in Milton Williams, the Patriots were firing on all cylinders. They held the Giants to just 239 yards of total offense on the night, never allowing New York to start a single set of downs in the red zone.
Early in the game, Patriots linebacker Christian Elliss helped set this tone, as he lit up Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart while he danced near the sideline on a 12-yard scramble on 2nd and 13 from the Giants 39 with 4:20 remaining in the first quarter.
The hit was legal, and it was sick.
New York fans and media have taken exception with both this hit as well as the Patriots’ supposed chippiness throughout the night.
Head coach Mike Vrabel was asked about both when he joined The Greg Hill Show on Tuesday morning for his weekly appearance on WEEI.
“A lot of online and postgame pontificating, saying that the Patriots were head hunting Jaxson Dart - the New York media is all up in arms at the chippiness of the Patriots,” said WEEI’s Chris Curtis. “What do you think? How would you describe the defense's performance last night?”
“I thought it was good,” said Vrabel. “I thought it was excellent. I thought that I didn't see anything on the first view that would tell me that - and again, this is both sides, and this happens in this league. If you're in bounds and you're not sliding - again, when Harold [Landry], the first sack, when Harold got him, I said, ‘Hey, got to be careful.’
“I mean, I don't think he was going for his head, and he just slid, you know? I mean, Harold's coming at him, and he slid. I said, ‘Just got to be careful.’ We know when a quarterback slides, they're protecting him, and we have to go in making sure that he's down and giving himself up, but we're not hitting him in the head or neck. We coach that all the time. We know that that's what happens. You know, the quarterbacks are gonna slide late, they're gonna be protected. We can say anything we want about it, we just have to understand what they're calling and what we have to do.
“But if there's a football guy, a player running down the sidelines, we're gonna have to hit him. And [we] go through this every week on a Friday tape, and we put it on there. It's whatever quarterback of the week, it happens twice a week. They're over there prancing around, and you're gonna get hit. And then we show that to Drake, and our defenders are being coached the same way. When I say ‘we better not get cute over there by the sidelines, because this is legal,’ I turn around and tell the defense, ‘If this is happening, we need to try to knock the s*** out of them as legally as possible.'”
Both hits discussed above were above board. Neither one necessitated a penalty flag being thrown, and both plays helped set the tone of the ballgame for the Patriots.
Elliss was asked about this hit at the podium postgame.
“During the play, I saw the scramble, started chasing him down,” said the fifth-year pro out of Utah. “He started tiptoeing on the sideline, and I thought he was just gonna go out of bounds. But then I saw him tiptoeing, so I was like - stay in bounds, I mean, what am I supposed to do, you know?
“We play hard on defense. We try to bring life to this team. So that's all I was trying to do, is just do my job and hit anything in the whites.”
Effort. Energy. Execution.
That’s the type of football this Vrabel-coached team has brought all season long.
Don’t expect that spirit to wane anytime soon.
Patriots are on a well-deserved bye in Week 14. They’ll return to Gillette Stadium in Week 15 for a rematch with the five-time defending champions of the AFC East in the Bills. The Patriots beat them at their place in Week 5 on Sunday Night Football 23-20. Given the stakes and records of both teams, there’s a chance this matchup is flexed into that NBC window as well.
With a win two Sundays from now, New England will clinch their first division title since 2019.
For a team that won eight combined games over the past two seasons, it would be quite the achievement for Vrabel in year one on the job at 1 Patriot Place.
Tune in each and every Monday throughout the football season to Patriots Monday on WEEI. Head coach Mike Vrabel joins The Greg Hill Show at 6:30 a.m. ET, and quarterback Drake Maye joins WEEI Afternoons.