New England Patriots
“I feel you embrace it whenever you attempt to construct an identification, and also you carry it on the highway with you.”
SAN FRANCISCO — The Patriots is likely to be the designated house group for Tremendous Bowl LX on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium.
But it surely gained’t be mirrored of their uniforms in Santa Clara.
Given the selection of the gameday apparel, the Patriots management group opted for his or her highway whites.
“We needed to choose blue or white, and we went with white. I assume the blue would have been a good suggestion. So long as we’ve received a uniform on,” Mike Vrabel stated final week. “I went by way of this with the uniform police in Tennessee. I strive to not get too concerned with it. We’re the house group. We get to decide on. Guys just like the white uniforms.”
As unorthodox because it is likely to be, New England’s monitor file away from Gillette Stadium speaks for itself.
The Patriots are 9-0 this season in highway video games — and 5-0 in bouts the place they put on each their white jerseys and white pants.
However the resolution to pack these highway whites isn’t rooted into that sterling file.
“There we go. I hope the tooth fairy comes tonight, too,” Vrabel stated sarcastically when New England’s file was introduced up. “We’ll be actual excited.”
Relatively, it goes again to a mantra and a foundational piece of this Patriots group’s identification — one fostered by a roster that seemingly performs its finest soccer in antagonistic situations.
The 2025 Patriots embraced the label of “Street Warriors” — for extra causes than one.
“This season is sort of a storybook — everyone had their very own experiences all through their lives, and so they sort of inserted them on this group,” Stefon Diggs stated. “Just like the ‘highway warrior’ idea, happening the highway, getting into a hostile surroundings — it’s similar to one thing we sort of received conditioned to do.”
The motto was crafted by the 2025 NFL Coach of the Year in Vrabel, though even the Patriots head coach didn’t count on it to turn out to be one of many defining rallying cries for a group that’s now one win away from a Tremendous Bowl title.
“It’s wonderful what sticks,” Vrabel admitted. “I didn’t suppose on the time that it could have caught, however right here we’re on the finish of January, and it’s nonetheless sticking.”
Vrabel and his teaching employees aren’t any strangers in the case of diving deep into the video archives to maintain gamers entertained, attentive, and motivated throughout the lengthy hours spent reviewing movie, putting in sport plans, and preaching rules.
When asserting sport captains on the Friday earlier than video games, Vrabel would showcase highlights of that participant out on the gridiron — whereas additionally weaving in awkward highlights taken from their high-school profession.
Outdoors of the gridiron, Vrabel isn’t any stranger to sharing clips from different sports activities, films and extra as a way to encourage his gamers.
Across the Patriots’ Week 2 matchup in opposition to the Dolphins — New England’s first highway journey of the season — Vrabel first began to indicate clips of the “The Street Warriors,” an 80s-era tag-team wrestling duo additionally known as “The Legion of Doom”.
New England’s head coach finally needed to pivot.
“I ran out of WWF clips to indicate them concerning the Street Warriors,” Vrabel lamented.
Because the Patriots embraced the problem of three-straight highway video games in opposition to the Payments, Saints, and Titans, Vrabel switched gears.
He opted to indicate a clip from the 1979 cult movie, “The Warriors” — the place the titular group was taunted by a rival gang member.
The oldest participant on New England’ roster, Morgan Moses, wasn’t born till 1991. Even Vrabel was simply 4 years outdated when “The Warriors” hit theaters.
However the movie — and the sight of the villain, Luther, clanging bottles collectively together with his fingers, — clearly resonated with Vrabel’s gamers … and even his employees.
“I imply, the primary time, I feel [director of sports performance] Frank [Piraino] emptied two soy sauces and a Purple Scorching bottle, and was strolling across the constructing,” Vrabel stated. “And I’m like, “What are you doing?” And he’s like, “Warriors.”
“And I used to be like, “It’s a soy sauce – it’s like a soy sauce bottle and a Purple Scorching.”’
The Patriots gamers clearly took word, nevertheless, with their new rallying cry strengthened on quite a few events throughout New England’s victory over the Broncos within the AFC championship sport final moth.
As veteran wideout Mack Hollins arrived on the scene at Empower Subject at Mile Excessive, he clanged collectively a trio of bottles collectively in a reenactment of Luther’s taunt.
“Warriors! Come out to play-ayyy,” Hollins stated as he walked by cameras.
“That’s sort of been our rally cry for some time, and I believed it was factor to do for that one,” Hollins stated on Wednesday, including: “There’s in all probability like 5 of us who’ve seen that film. … I wish to have enjoyable with my arrival outfit, so it was good.
“The bottles I received had been smaller. They took some looking to search out, however they nonetheless weren’t sufficiently small. They’re not like the scale of the little stubbies that they’d within the films again within the day. So fortunately, my palms are sufficiently big to essentially maintain them. A smaller handed individual would have positively struggled.”
Vrabel issued an analogous “WARRIORS!” decree within the Patriots locker room after that 10-7 win, by which New England gutted out a raucous Denver crowd and brutal climate situations to punch their ticket to Tremendous Bowl LX.
Whereas Levi’s Stadium will function its fair proportion of New England followers making the trek out west for Tremendous Bowl LX, the Patriots expect quite a lot of noise from a hefty contingent of Seahawks followers — deemed The 12s” in reference to being the additional individual on the sector.
The stakes will likely be increased than ever on Sunday. However be it a muggy afternoon in Miami, a snow-swept area in Denver, or a crisp night in Santa Clara on Sunday, New England’s strategy away from Gillette Stadium stays unchanged.
“I feel you embrace it whenever you attempt to construct an identification, and also you carry it on the highway with you,” Drake Maye stated, including: “It’s not fairly. It’s not going to be all the things we wished. However there’s occasions on the highway the place we’ve been on hearth, and there’s occasions whenever you’re simply making an attempt to do no matter you’ll be able to to win. I feel that’s what playoff soccer is about.”
For Diggs, it comes as little shock that this roster — one comprised of cast-offs, reclamation initiatives, and unproven kids — welcomes any alternative to enter hostile territory and sap the power out of the constructing.
“I simply suppose it’s caught, as a result of it’s quite a lot of guys from this group who come from totally different backgrounds, or come from totally different groups,” Diggs stated. “[They’ve] been minimize, been signed in free company, no matter it’s. No sob tales. All of us gonna band collectively. We’re gonna work out a methods to win. In order that’s why I feel the ‘highway warrior’ mindset sort of translated so nicely.”
The Patriots have another highway sport left on their docket this season.
If the “highway warriors” dwell as much as their billing, they could possibly be coming house with soccer’s biggest prize.
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