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Pregame, Super Bowl LX.

In 2010, Bill Belichick was asked about the finality that comes with the end of a playoff run.

“It’s like you’re on a treadmill and you’re running however fast you run. I mean, I don’t run all that fast, but you’re on a treadmill and you hit the stop button, it stops and you fall off. And that’s where you’re in the NFL playoffs, at whatever point it is, whether it’s the first round, whether it’s the divisional round, or whether it’s in the championship game or whether it’s in the Super Bowl. If you don’t win at any one of those or even last year, as you’re playing to get into the playoffs and the treadmill stops, then you don’t take another step, it doesn’t go and you fall off it. Then the other teams that are playing keep playing. No matter when that feeling comes, it’s a pretty disappointing feeling.”

Spot on. You’re going a million miles an hour, thinking of nothing but football all of the time, and then, WHAMMO. It’s all done.

For the 2025 Patriots, that treadmill came to an awfully dramatic stop last Sunday night in Santa Clara. There was lots of sadness and lots of tears in the locker room. In my postgame story for the Boston Globe, I was struck by just how silent it was compared to much of the year. All season long, there was bass, there were smiles and high-fives, and gleefully profane shots taken at each other in the wake of another happy victory. On Sunday, other than a locker room equipment guy taking nameplates off the wall with a clank-clank, it was just quiet.

Postgame, I had the option of going to the podiums, or to the locker room. The postgame podiums were a sizable distance from the locker room. Plus, my newspaper didn’t send me 3,000 miles to wait at a postgame podium to get quotes that could be taken off a television. And the locker room is where you get the real feel for what’s going on. Access is everything. And so, because I was charged by my editor to be the last possible person before they closed out the locker room — my job was to write a eulogy to the 2025 team — I headed for the locker room.

It can feel terribly invasive to be talking to players during a moment like that, but that’s a part of the gig. Guys like Christian Ellis and Andy Borregales had their eyes rimmed with tears, while others like Carlton Davis III, Jaylinn Hawkins, Milton Williams, and Morgan Moses talked quietly about that night, the season, as well as their future. (Moses spent a sizable portion of time talking quietly with both Will Campbell and Drake Maye. The guy has been the very definition of leader all year long.) Khyiris Tonga, who was maybe the most cheerfully upbeat guy in the locker room all season, managed a small smile when a reporter acknowledged him for being so accessible to the media all year.

Solid dude Khyiris Tonga was a go-to quote this past season. I’ll be sad to see him go if he signs somewhere else.

They all gradually got dressed, sharing stories while agreeing they were going to come back even stronger in 2026.

“We put the league on notice,” said Davis behind a pair of dark sunglasses.

So what’s their legacy? You guys know I’ve spent part of the last few months wrestling with a historical comp for the 2025 team. With the way the season ended, I’m going to go with the 1996 Patriots (minus the off-field drama involving the head coach and owner, of course). It’s not an exact one-for-one exchange, but there are plenty of parallels to consider:

• Both teams had a young quarterback on the ascent, in his early 20s, looking to cement their place among the NFL elite. (Drew Bledsoe was 24 when he played in Super Bowl XXXI, Drake Maye was 23.)

• Both teams got sizable contributions from younger players: in 1996, Ty Law, Terry Glenn, Lawyer Milloy, Curtis Martin, Tedy Bruschi. Adam Vinatieri, Ted Johnson, and Bledsoe were all 24 years old or younger. This past year, Maye, TreVeyon Henderson, Christian Gonzalez, Craig Woodson, Kayshon Boutte, and Will Campbell are all 24 or younger.

• Each team had a collection of elite defensive talent; foundational elements that were capable of taking over a game. (Law, Milloy, Willie McGinest; Gonzalez, Milton Williams.)

• Both teams made unexpected runs (the Patriots were 6-10 in 1995, and 4-13 in 2024), were undeniably talented, and also received a little luck along the way, particularly when it came to their playoff matchups. Denver, the No. 1 seed in the AFC in 1996, lost the divisional round at home to Jacksonville, which cleared a path for the Patriots to host the conference championship at home against the Jaguars.

• And both teams ended up losing the Super Bowl to better teams because they weren’t completely ready to compete at the absolute highest level.

We’ll spend lots of time over the next few months debating what lies ahead for this group. Can they become that rare team that loses a Super Bowl and makes it back to the playoffs … or even the big game? (Only three teams have lost the Super Bowl one year and won it the following season.) Are they going to be in for a post-Super Bowl hangover in 2026? What happens with Stefon Diggs? And how will they approach offseason team-building? We’ll start to get some answers in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, this quote from Moses feels like an appropriate capper to the season.

“Obviously, it’s going to leave a little bit of a bitter taste in our mouth, but you have an opportunity to come back next season and [change] that,” said Moses. “Vrabel talked about building a program that we were going to be excited about, and I think we did that.

“Nobody gave us the opportunity, the chance to do it, and we just kept on. Notch after notch, week after week, just battling. We didn’t finish it, but at the end of the day, man, we have a lot of opportunities. We have a lot of great players coming back, great coaches. And we look forward to it.

My Dad was an Episcopalian minister. He’s retired now, but when he preached, he was really good. He used to draw people in, act as a counselor and a friend, and had all sorts of really cool sermons. He would preach on Johnny Unitas and Jackie Robinson and Ricky Bobby. (Yeah, that Ricky Bobby.) In one of my favorites, he drew this line between the dinner-table scene where Ricky Bobby and his family were talking about Jesus and what sort of Jesus we’re all comfortable with that — as a writer — I’m still amazed at.

(I was always a little struck as to how similar our jobs were/are. We both have non-traditional pursuits that don’t fit into the 9-to-5 stereotype. We both worked weekends, and the week always built to the big payoff. Every so often, we would have to try and soothe people in occasional times of travail. And we both engaged with people of deep faith and spoke to those who would look forward to salvation every Sunday.)

Anyway, the emotional buildup in the church to Christmas and Easter is understandable. In church, those two holidays are everything. But after those two holidays, there’s the inevitable letdown the following week, both spiritually and emotionally. The Sunday following Christmas and the Sunday after Easter were always referred to as “Low Sundays.” Basically, this weekend is the NFL’s version of “Low Sunday.” Enjoy it. Rest, recharge, and be ready when the carousel gets cranked up again.

• Hogan and I put the wraps on the 2025 season, addressing the Super Bowl, Maye, Campbell, what’s next for the rest of the roster, and more. We spent a lot of time talking about the future of Campbell.

• Hogan also shared some thoughts on Super Bowl losses and AFC Championship rings.

• I spent sone quality time talking Patriots and the fallout from the Super Bowl with the guys from “Toucher & Hardy” on 98.5 The Sports Hub.

• The first mailbag of the offseason had plenty of questions about the Super Bowl, Will Campbell, roster needs, and more.

• A few people reached out to me about this one: when the team needed it the most, the New England run defense couldn’t rise to the challenge. The charge from e-mailers was that the offensive line was far more culpable in defeat than the defense. My response was that the expectation that had been in place regarding the defensive front was such that more was anticipated from them in Super Bowl LX. There were questions about the offensive line. None about the run defense. Anyway, you can take your complaints up with Williams, who said of Kenneth Walker: “We knew coming in that he was the head of the snake. Put it on me. Put it on the D-line. We ain’t do enough to win the game.”

• Almost two weeks to catch my breath start on positional reviews, and submit my expense report from 10 days on the West Coast, and then, it’s off to Indianapolis for the combine. I’ll be there from Monday, February 23 through Friday, February 27, catching up with people from around the NFL universe and getting some thoughts about free agency, the draft, and where the Patriots stand in relation to the other 31 teams in the league.

.• This year was terrific fun. Certainly the most unexpected run any team I’ve covered since 2001. Appreciate you guys coming along for the ride. Until next time.