A few weeks into the season, sometime after the Patriots’ upset the Bills in Sunday Night Football, I noticed a pattern in the locker room.
My curiosity was piqued when I heard Pop Douglas ask Stefon Diggs what color shorts he should wear to practice that day. The receivers’ locker row is closest to the equipment room, and Douglas’ stall is right next to Diggs’. Douglas stood on his cushioned folding chair and was halfway concealed by the open wooden doors of his locker as he rifled through his shorts and T-shirts.
The answer: “Red. Red day.”
On an afternoon in October, as I bumbled around a laundry cart in the middle of the room, I heard another receiver tell the others he didn’t have a pair of white compression tights in his locker for practice that day. The equipment staff set out to find him a set.
As someone who admittedly loves any lore within a winning locker room, I wanted to ask why the receivers were matching their getups every day. See, it’s unusual for a group to set an actual practice uniform. Yes, guys wear their football pants, or shorts, or tights, or whatever suitable gear they want under their jerseys, (you may remember Julian Edelman’s bright yellow Kent State shirt). But a whole position group of NFL players wearing the same shirts, shorts, tights, or football pants on the same practice days?
One day a week, all the receivers donned blue football pants, or sweats, with matching navy sleeves. On another, they’d be in red shorts with the previously mentioned white tights, or red pants. But all the same – identical pants and matching shirts. And all black on Fridays.
I suspected superstition had taken root, considering how well the receivers have played this year, as a unit.
The Patriots’ 2024 receiving corps finished dead last in overall yards, 29th in yards per reception, and 31st in touchdowns.
Nobody – even the biggest Diggs or Mack Hollins fan in the world – could have predicted the change in the group this year. Through Week 13, they lead the league in overall yards, they’re second in yards per reception, and have racked up the fifth-most touchdowns. The team’s Week 14 bye aids their ranking, but there’s no denying a group who’s gone from worst-to-first in less than a year. Drake Maye is playing out of his mind, sure. But this receiver group, comprised of many of the same guys from last season, looks totally different.
I asked center Garrett Bradbury whether he noticed the receivers’ routine. It sounded like the topic of a superstitious locker room had been batted around.
“I was talking with Hunter and Drake about this,” he said. “I think me and Hunter both said, earlier in our career, we were a lot more superstitious. It gets less and less. There’s some little things, where, if I’m sitting in a certain spot while the defense is out there and good things happen, I’ll probably go back to that spot. But I think the older I’ve gotten, you’ve got to put the ball out there and go play.
“Every locker room is superstitious, I’ll say that. Some, a little more than others. Some guys, they have all these kinds of routines. That’s too much for me to keep up with,” he added.
Linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson agreed that, despite the individual success he’s had with the Patriots this year, he hasn’t gotten caught up in any routines.
“I wish I did,” he said. “I just float with what life gives me.”
Then, unprompted, he shared, “I see our receiver group doing some stuff every week, though. They’ve got…they different.”
Could he elaborate? He began putting on his cleats and raised his eyebrows.
“They dress a certain way on certain days. They sit a certain way on benches and stuff,” he said, with a chuckle. “That’s they route.”
Before I got to the receivers, (Douglas confirmed to me during one week that they had started the matching at the very start of the season, but didn’t have time to dive too deeply into it), I went to the player who I – perhaps stereotypically – assumed was the most superstitious on the team.
Andy Borregales. Who’s more superstitious than kickers?
“For me, I listen to the same four songs before the game, and I try to wear the same cleats, because I switched cleats, and I missed one. I went back to the red cleats,” he said.
I know. You want to know the songs. I asked.
He laughed. “I try to keep it personal, but if you hear, ‘In the Air Tonight,’ just know, that’s probably me.”
So, Borregales listens to a song that came out 21 years before he was born. I have a new appreciation for his taste.
Before the bye week break, I asked rookie receiver Kyle Williams about the outfit coordination, and any other ways the receivers may have found some extra luck through Week 13.
“Yeah, the matching thing,” he said, then gestured to the receivers at the lockers around his, as well as backup quarterback Tommy DeVito, who sat on his chair next to Williams.
“This whole row hasn’t showered since Week 1,” Williams joked, prompting some laughs from DeVito and fellow receiver Efton Chism. “We just put on lotion and hope the smell goes away.”
Did he remember when it started, or whose idea it was? He said he really didn’t –
“No, that’s a lie,” DeVito broke in. “It was Mack.”
“Mack started it,” Williams happily agreed, nodding. “Mack Diesel. Blue, red, black. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Can’t switch it up. You got to stay true to it. We true to this, we ain’t new to this.”
Hollins laughed and shook his head when I asked him about the getups.
“There’s only so many colors we can wear.”
Okay, so he didn’t want to claim responsibility for the start of the thing. But it was obviously a thing, and I asked him if he ever got personal with his superstitions.
“I used to be real particular with this smoothie I would make,” he said. “It was strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and banana. But there were some times when there wasn’t blackberries, and there’s always blueberries, but not blackberries, and I’d be like, ‘OH NO. I’ve got to have it.’ And I’d ask the nutritionist, ‘Can we go and get this?’ They’d say, ‘We don’t have them right now. We didn’t order them.’ Now I’m in my head about it. It’s a smoothie. It’s some blackberries. Who cares?”
Those were early days, he explained, back in Philadelphia.
Finally, I wanted to get to the head honcho on superstitions. Coach Mike Vrabel sported a mustache that had Andy Reid-like ambitions through November, to bring awareness to men’s health, but he kept it for the December 1st victory over the Giants in Monday Night Football.
As he promised postgame, it was gone by the next morning’s press conference. I asked him whether anyone in the locker room wanted him to continue sporting it for luck. The Patriots were 5-0 since Vrabel had spouted it.
“I didn't tell them,” he said. “I didn't shave in the middle of the locker room, so I don't know.”
That’s the prevailing attitude of the team: football is the focus; the team is the thing. All this extra nonsense is just that.
But when I see the receivers picking out shorts together, laughing, and the rest of the locker room taking note, it’s a reminder of how far many of these guys – the same guys who were part of a four-win team last year – have come in less than a year under Vrabel.
“I think that they – I've said this after the game, the strength of our wide receiver unit is in the unit. I know that that's hard for a position, especially that position, but everybody's catching passes, everybody's catching touchdowns, they're trying to block when they don't have the ball. And I understand and I appreciate that. And so, I remind them of that,” Vrabel said, before the bye. “And it can't – it's not going to be just one guy getting 15 or 16 targets every week. I just don't think that that's what this is. I appreciate their unselfishness, and I think that that is just a small microcosm of what I want our football team to look like and feel.”
Before the Giants game, I asked Williams if they were going to continue the “matching thing” through the rest of the season.
“Yeah, we gonna keep it up,” he said.
Blue, red, black. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Feel free to join the movement.