The Patriots will kick off the 2026 season against the same team that dashed their hopes of winning the Super Bowl and that will lead to some reflection on what went wrong against the Seahawks at Levi’s Stadium in February.
Seattle’s overwhelming defensive performance is at the top of that list. The Seahawks had six sacks and three takeaways during their 29-13 win and the New England offense’s inability to handle pressure throughout the game swung things in Seattle’s direction.
During a Sunday press conference, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels pointed the finger squarely at himself for those shortcomings.
“Whether it’s the rush concepts that they had when they didn’t blitz or the the pressures that they used, they created some opportunities for themselves,” McDaniels said. “I didn’t do a good enough job. Point it at me. They did a great job. They ‘out-everythinged’ us in the game. Start with coaching and that comes back to me. We have a lot of things we learned, but I think this will be a different game, I think it will be a new game. It’s a new year. We have some different players. They have a few guys that are new. We’ll see how different it is as the complexion of the game unfolds. They certainly found some opportunities last year, and hopefully we’ve done a good job trying to limit those as we go into Wednesday night.”
While McDaniels is looking inward, others pointed to left tackle Will Campbell’s rough outing as a leading piece of what went wrong for the Patriots. Campbell dealt with a knee injury leading into the game and McDaniels said he’s confident that the 2025 first-rounder is on the right track heading into Wednesday night.
“I don’t look at it as a rebound. I look at it as the progression of a second-year player. . . . He’s had a really good mindset all year,” McDaniels said. “Locked in, good spring, good camp trying to work on the things he knows at his position are important and critical to his improvement.”
Whatever the mix of coaching and execution, all of the pieces will need to come together for the Patriots to pull off a road win this week.
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