Two of last season's biggest breakthrough stories collide when Drake Maye's retooled Patriots roll into Jacksonville to face Trevor Lawrence and the reigning AFC South champion Jaguars.
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SUN SEP 27 · 1:00 PM ET
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New England's stunning 10-win turnaround under Mike Vrabel ended in a 29-13 beatdown at the hands of the Seahawks in Super Bowl LX, where a banged-up Maye was sacked 6 times and threw 2 interceptions. The Patriots' answer this offseason was aggressive: they traded for A.J. Brown, who's cracked 1,000 receiving yards in 6 of his 7 NFL seasons and gives Maye the true No. 1 target this offense has lacked. Across the field, Lawrence enters the season off arguably the best stretch of his career, averaging 265 passing yards and 2.6 touchdowns a game with a 108.6 rating over Jacksonville's final 7 games of 2025.
Both quarterbacks are working through real questions before any of this counts. Maye's shoulder is no longer an issue, but New England still needs answers on an offensive line that got shredded on the sport's biggest stage. Jacksonville's biggest variable is Travis Hunter — GM James Gladstone says the two-way standout will be a full participant by training camp, but exactly how the Jaguars split his snaps between wideout and cornerback is still being sorted out.
Jacksonville won the AFC South and closed the regular season on an 8-game winning streak before a gut-punch Wild Card exit, falling 27-24 to Buffalo on a late Cole Bishop interception. That kind of late-season surge is exactly what New England is chasing after going from also-ran to Super Bowl participant in Vrabel's first year running the show.
New England Patriots
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Jacksonville Jaguars
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Depth-chart battles are still shaking out on both sides. New England's backfield keeps Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson atop the room, with Terrell Jennings and Lan Larison pushing for the No. 3 job, while Christian Gonzalez has been full-go at minicamp after last year's absence. Jacksonville, meanwhile, is waiting on Chris Rodriguez to clear a foot procedure and hoping Jourdan Lewis's foot issue doesn't linger into the fall.
New England Patriots
Jacksonville Jaguars
Neither team enters this one with anything settled — that's the point of a summer preview for a Week 4 game. But the ingredients are obvious: an ascending young quarterback with a new superstar receiver against a quarterback who just played the best football of his life for a franchise that finally broke through.
