Andrew Callahan: If Mike Vrabel's Patriots are right about who they are, they will beat the Chargers

Andrew Callahan, Boston Herald on Jan 8, 2026

Published in Football

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FOXBORO, Mass. — Somewhere near the top of the list of reasons Mike Vrabel chose Robert Spillane to be the heart of his defense is trust.

Vrabel can trust his inside linebacker and captain to relay the right play-calls and make the right checks. He can trust Spillane to lead with his voice inside the huddle and as much violence as possible on every play. And when the time comes, as it did Wednesday before practice, Vrabel can trust Spillane to speak for the team.

“Sunday is gonna come down to identity to us,” Spillane said of the Pats’ wild-card playoff game. “(The Chargers) want to be the biggest, baddest team. We want to be the biggest, baddest team.”

Nailed it.

For all the hype building around Drake Maye’s duel with Justin Herbert, that is the truth about Sunday night.

If the Patriots are who they think they are, they’ll win.

If they’re wrong, the Chargers will have beaten them in a way all 57 of their fans could have predicted and the manner Vrabel out-lined earlier this week.

“They kind of stick to their game plan, wear you down and execute in critical situations,” he said.

Say what you will about the Chargers’ deficiencies — more on those in a moment — there is a clarity and consistency about this team. They know who they are and how they want to play. Like all Jim Harbaugh teams, the Bolts were built from inside out; built to bully, outlast and out-tough you.

All of football’s finest clichés come to life every Sunday.

The only reason the Chargers are not who they want to be, even at 11-6, is because injuries have robbed them of that chance. They lost both starting offensive tackles early in the year, and their search for a new blindside protector has led them through seven different players. They cannot pass protect, and their run game moves in spite of their O-line.

Still, thanks to Herbert, Harbaugh and a ferocious defense, they press on. Not as a true contender, but a playoff team that refuses to fold, unlike so many of the cupcakes that dotted the Patriots’ regular-season schedule. There is a universe where the Patriots’ schedule this year was not a bake sale as much as a four-month practice test for the postseason that took a bigger bite out of their roster.

In that universe, they are the Chargers; a quarterback-driven, well-coached team lesser than the one playing at home Sunday.

If the Patriots lose as 3.5-point favorites, that would validate the hesitation Vrabel seemed to show Monday while answering whether the Pats are built for the playoffs after explaining in great detail why the Chargers are.

“I think that we’re trending in the right direction,” he said.

Vrabel’s case for the Chargers’ postseason readiness rested on several points, including a few traits that overlap with his own team. He mentioned physicality, strong tackling, above-average third-down defense and physicality again. Then he cited a few differences — red-zone performance and time of possession — before circling back to coaching and quarterback play.

For the Patriots to win, Vrabel and Maye must star, but that will not be enough. Spillane, Milton Williams, Will Campbell and all other Patriots working up front must meet the Chargers head on to beat them at their own game. Otherwise, if LA wins the line of scrimmage, all is lost.

Good news: the Pats have been building to this moment with their words and their play, starting with Vrabel’s introductory press conference last January all the way through a bully-ball scheme change over the last four weeks. Since breaking from their bye, the Patriots have run the ball behind an extra offensive lineman more than every other team in the league except two.

It’s working.

The Pats are averaging 8.7 yards per carry, using little-known reserve offensive lineman Thayer Munford all across their formations. Munford knows the assignment.

“Just try to help out this identity of we’re tough, we’re gonna run it down your throat,” he said.

The Patriots’ last home playoff game came down to exactly this.

It was Tom Brady’s farewell in January 2020, a tug of war disguised as a playoff football game where Derrick Henry and the Titans tried to rip a dynasty from his hands. They succeeded. Henry punched in a game-winning, one-yard touchdown run moments before halftime, and Tennessee’s defense held on from there.

Vrabel, you’ll remember, coached those Titans.

Six years later, Vrabel can see the Chargers coming to fight the Patriots on those same battlegrounds. And as it was then, whoever wins those battles Sunday will win the war.

Just ask Robert Spillane.

“They want to run the ball, we want to run the ball. They want to stop the run, we want to stop the run,” he said. “They want to get a win, we want to get a win,” he said.