The Patriots are technically the home team in Super Bowl LX. They prefer not to be.
With an unprecedented 9-0 record when not playing in Gillette Stadium, the Patriots opted to continue their 2025 “Road Warriors” vibe by wearing white jerseys next Sunday.
As explained by Mike Reiss of ESPN.com, team captains and the leadership council voted to embrace the away uniforms.
Coach Mike Vrabel showed the team a clip from the 1979 film The Warriors in October, as the Patriots began a three-game stretch at Buffalo, New Orleans, and Tennessee.
It sparked receiver Mack Hollins’s modified barefoot stadium arrival last Sunday, mimicking the moment in the film when Luther, clinking three beer bottles together on his fingers, repeatedly says, “War-ri-ors, come out to play-eee-ay.”
“I ran out of [WWE] clips to show them about the ‘Road Warriors’ [tag team],” Vrabel said this week. “So, the next thing I could think of was that movie clip, and that’s what we went with. It’s amazing what sticks. Here we are at the end of January, and it’s still sticking.”
They’ll try to make it stick through to a tenth straight win in seven days.
“Going on the road, into a hostile environment, it’s something we just kind of got conditioning to doing,” receive Stefon Diggs said. “A lot of guys from this team come from different backgrounds, different teams, being cut, signed in free agency. There’s no sob story. We’re going to band together and find a way to win. I think that’s why the ‘Road Warrior’ mentality translated so well.”
The Road Warrior vibe may apply again in Santa Clara. It’s a closer trip for Seahawks fans, who travel well. There’s a chance the building will be largely pro-Seahawks. Which could play right into the Patriots’ bottle-jangling hands.
