The New England Patriots need to fix one thing to win the Super Bowl this season.
The New England Patriots are Super Bowl contenders with first-year head coach Mike Vrabel and second-year QB Drake Maye leading the way.
The 12-3 Patriots are seventh in the NFL in points per game and seventh in points per game allowed.
For the first time in the post-Tom Brady era, the Patriots have a roster that can win it all, but according to NFL analyst Brad Gagnon of Bleacher Report, Vrabel's "Red-zone defense" must improve.
"The Patriots are clinging to the AFC East lead despite a lack of experience on both sides of the ball," Gagnon wrote. "That's been particularly revealing the last couple weeks against the Bills and Ravens, where they've surrendered seven touchdowns on nine red-zone possessions. Statistically, they have the worst red-zone D in the league this season."
New England is giving up 20.0 points per game. That's a really good number.
However, they are having trouble stopping teams from scoring in the red-zone. That has to change for the Patriots to go on a deep playoff run.
"I think just to make sure that everybody understood what the expectations were," Vrabel said this week. "That there's a lot of ways to win football games in this league with a lot of different players, a lot of different lineups, a lot of different schemes and however we need to do to win football games, but that was going to be the goal. Making sure that they all understood that, making sure that they knew that this was the priority and that's what we've tried to do. Now, we haven't done it. We still have opportunities to do it, but just making sure everybody understood what the expectations were."
The Patriots have two games left in the regular season. They face the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins, two teams below .500.
All signs point toward Vrabel going 14-3 in his first season as New England's head coach. He could very well win the Coach of the Year Award and Maye could win MVP.