It’s interesting that the feeling among Patriots fans is that once the team secured home-field advantage through the playoffs, the Super Bowl became a foregone conclusion.
It shows you how easily sustained superiority can breed arrogance. One can only hope that the Patriots resist this feeling of entitlement with which most of their fans are afflicted.
You can see it in the poll questions on the Fifth Quarter, or in the newspapers. Which team, they ask, will give the Patriots the biggest problem in the playoffs.
My answer: All of them. Every single one of them. Even the Buffalo Bills, whom the Patriots twice defeated rather soundly.
What’s worrisome about the Patriots isn’t the defense, which is what most people see is the biggest problem. But after almost three months of football, the Pats have proven capable enough on defense to stop any of the teams that they’ll play. There may be some tense moments, but the Patriots seem to rise to the occasion when they have to.
It’s the offense that seems to be stuck in the mud these days. Ever since Rob Gronkowski jumped on Tre’Davious White, the whole karma of the offense changed. Up to that point, they had been a juggernaut for almost a month and a half. After that, things have sputtered a bit more.
If you go back to last year, Rob Gronkowski missed a considerable amount of time with a back injury and the Patriots hardly knew he was gone. They had Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, Martellus Bennett and Malcolm Mitchell, all of them actively engaged in pass-catching.
This year, there’s no Edelman, Amendola has been nursing aches and pains, Bennett is back, but non-functional, and Mitchell has missed some time with injuries too. That plethora of receivers Tom Brady had at his disposal has been reduced significantly. He and Gronkowski won the Pittsburgh game all by themselves (which makes you wonder why the Steelers allowed him to go down the field unimpeded during that final drive).
Even given the fact that the Patriots do not play well in Miami, that was a bad loss to the Dolphins. It exposed a great deal about the lack of diversity in their passing game. If running back Dion Lewis hadn’t come on the way he has, I wonder what this offense would look like.
Speaking of Brady, there’s something wrong. Sure, he put his cape on and bailed the Patriots out of what would have been a costly loss in Pittsburgh, but he hasn’t been the GOAT through most of December. It could be he’s hurt. Or it could be he’s 40 and starting to show signs of it.
I don’t care what kind of crazy concoctions of food you eat, and how much it promises to keep you spry and competitive until you’re 50. Age works on its own time. I’d still rather have him back there than just about anyone else, but all of a sudden, you start to realize that where he probably didn’t need a whole lot of help five years ago, he does now. If other aspects of the offense aren’t clicking, he’s more susceptible to the vagaries of the game than he’s ever been.
This isn’t to say that the Patriots have no shot. That’s not true. All you have to do is look at the quarterbacks he’ll be facing and see that as much as time may have eaten into his abilities, outside of Ben Roethlisberger, nobody really strikes fear into your heart. Marcus Mariota (Tennessee) is too young. Tyrod Taylor (Buffalo) is mediocre. And even Alex Smith (Kansas City) is not the type of guy you’d rely on to win a game all by himself. Nor is Blake Bortles (Jacksonville).
What’ll beat the Patriots is a team whose defense is not afraid of Brady and Bill Belichick. None of the other five teams’ offenses are going to do the job on their own.
They caught a huge break when the Baltimore Ravens were eliminated from the playoffs because they have players who relish the opportunity to match wits with, and beat, Brady.
They may be in for a rude awakening if they happen to face the Chiefs next Saturday, and if all goes according to Hoyle, they will. Kansas City is the fourth seed, and outside of one playoff game two years ago, the Chiefs have been real burrs on their saddle. And historically, coach Andy Reid has been a tough out for Belichick. Don’t forget that in 2007, when the Patriots were pushing to say undefeated, Reid’s Philadelphia Eagles were one of three teams toward the end of the season that gave the Patriots one of their toughest games.
The Steelers don’t concern me very much. They’ve done nothing but trip all over themselves every time they’ve faced the Patriots. They’ve never learned that jaw-flapping often gets in the way of winning big games.
As I said, this is not to say that the Patriots are, categorically, going to be beaten. But they’d better not adopt their fans’ attitude that a Super Bowl is a foregone conclusion.
Because this year, unlike many others along the way, it is not.