Patriots Hold Their Own Path

By Steve Atkinson 

The Patriots are 9-2 and hold the second spot in the AFC. The Broncos just pulled off an upset over the Chiefs, in my opinion. I don’t think Bo Nix is as good as Drake Maye, Patrick Mahomes, and the Chiefs, who are currently on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. The Ravens, Bills, and Chiefs are either at the bottom of the playoff picture or outside of it. It would take a miracle for the Chiefs to squeak in at this point. Can the Chiefs go into Indy next week and beat them? Meanwhile, the Patriots face a banged-up Bengals team.

I see one or two more losses for the Patriots. I think they can beat Buffalo at home, but might lose to Baltimore; I’m not sure. I thought they would lose to Tampa. There is no quit with the Patriots; they fight and believe in each other, thanks to Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye’s ability to make players around him better.

I think the Patriots can beat the Colts, Broncos, Chargers, and anyone at the top of the AFC. Even if the Colts or Broncos score first, I believe the Patriots, with Drake Maye’s playing style, can beat those teams in the playoffs. If the season ended today, I think they’d be hosting the Jaguars—that’s a win.

Here was Vrabel after the Jets game on everything coming together

Just looking back and just trying to get everybody together and say, Hey, what can we do that maybe we’ve wanted to do or thought about doing on a short week, and just exhaust every avenue of giving guys IVs before we left Tampa, having the massage therapist, everybody on all hands on deck here, and also having a schedule. Our assistant trainer went around and scheduled everybody so there could be a flow chart, and guys didn’t walk in at 11:30 and say, ‘Well, I can’t get a massage because Morgan Moses is already on a table’. So, let’s make sure that this is planned out and there’s some thought to it, and give our players the best opportunity to recover. So that’s what we did.

All the talk about an easy schedule when they went to Buffalo and Tampa to beat them on the road. There is no reason they can’t run the table here down the stretch. Drake Maye, after the game, was focused on one game at a time.

No, I don’t think anything has surprised me. When you put the work in and we have good players and good coaches, you are going to get the result that you want. Obviously, there’s been some results this season, some losses, and you build from that and learn from it and try to learn about it every week. I think we’re going to enjoy the weekend and get ready for the next one on Sunday. I think it’s Cincy. Is it Cincy? Yeah. Just trying to take it one week at a time.