**FOXBOROUGH — Mike Vrabel’s Lesson in Taking Advantage of Opportunities**
When Mike Vrabel was hired as head coach of the New England Patriots before the 2025 season, he made a very telling statement about the team’s expectations for the future.
“We just want to be good enough to take advantage of bad football,” Vrabel said during his introductory press conference in January. “That’s where we’re going to start.”
However, in Sunday’s Week 3 matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Patriots themselves played some very bad football at key moments — mistakes that ultimately led to their loss. Fortunately for New England, the Steelers did not capitalize fully on these opportunities, perhaps forgetting Vrabel’s lesson about taking advantage of opponents’ errors.
The Patriots finished the game with five turnovers. Two of those were fumbles by running back Rhamondre Stevenson, while Antonio Gibson added another fumble. Quarterback Drake Maye contributed both an interception and a fumble.
How can a team expect to win a game when they give away that many chances to their opponent?
“It was a tough lesson for us,” Vrabel admitted after the loss. “We don’t need to lose a football game to know that turnovers are very hard to overcome. They erase all the good things that you do. They take away momentum. They take away points and give the other team good field position.”
“We didn’t need to turn it over as many times as we did to learn that lesson. I think we knew it before. It was very unfortunate. We just have to not give them so many chances with the turnovers. We have to take care of those things,” he added.
“There’s a lot to clean up. There’s a lot of good in there, but unfortunately just not enough to get us the win or to really have any sort of advantage in a football game. Every time I felt like we were going to take the momentum and be able to score and move forward, and the defense did a great job there, it ended up being one too many opportunities for their side.”
There have been flashes of brilliance this season, and the team appears to have everything needed to win in this league. But ultimately, they continue to beat themselves with costly mistakes.
The first step for the Patriots is clear: eliminate the bad football. From there, they must develop the ability to consistently take advantage of opponents’ errors. With Mike Vrabel’s strong leadership and accountability, along with the leadership within the locker room, that progress seems well within reach.
https://patriotswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/patriots/2025/09/21/patriots-define-bad-football-steelers-nearly-lets-slip-away/86281500007/
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