Why the Patriots Have to Make the Super Bowl

I hate to sound like a centrist, but two things can be true: 

1. This is an average Patriots team, and  

2. It would be a major disappointment if they don’t make the Super Bowl.  

Let’s start with the first thing, this Pats team isn’t very good.  

For the regular season they were first in offensive EPA/play and 11^th in defensive EPA/play.  

That first in offensive EPA/play number is a Drake Maye and schedule stat, because he has deeply mediocre help elsewhere.  

The Pats were 16^th in EPA/rush with their leading rusher, Treyveon Henderson, running for 911 yards at the 29^th best success rate in the league. Their leading receiver this year was 32-year-old Stefon Diggs coming off a torn ACL.  

Defensively, this is a dominant run defence especially with Milton Williams in the fold but a just okay pass defence outside of Christian Gonzalez and the streaky Carlton Davis. 

This is not intended to be critical of the Patriots team building over the offseason. Mike Vrabel and Elliot Wolf came in and sought low-cost competence across the board so they could see what they had in the quarterback. That sort of thinking smartly drove them to low risk but potentially high reward signings like Stefon Diggs to essentially a one year deal and even offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.  

It’s the same sort of thinking that drives directors to put John Turturro in their movies or shows. You just know they aren’t too expensive and are going to make things better.  

They basically put together an entire roster of John Turturro’s around young talent like Drake Maye and Kayshon Boutte, spending the 21^st most cash on the roster in the NFL while preserving their future.  

They have five picks in the first four rounds of next year’s draft as well as $26 million in cap space next season before reworking Stefon Diggs’ contract. $26 million is already top-10 in the league, but they are likely to move into the top 6 once they lower Diggs’ cap number. 

You have felt the creakiness, especially offensively, in the playoffs. In both games, they have really struggled to move the ball outside of Maye’s legs and pop plays from Rhamondre Stevenson. Across both games they have been well below their season long success rate and scoring numbers in both games to date.  

Part of it is that they’ve played two excellent defences, but another part is that they just don’t have great talent outside of Maye on offence. 

Maye, who has not played brilliantly in the playoffs, has had an Al Pacino in The Godfather 3 couple of games where he’s had moments of genius but has otherwise tried too hard to elevate crappy surroundings. Unlike Al Pacino, his smallish hands are affecting his work and he’s also had a fumbling issue. 

Put simply, it’s a year too early for the Patriots. Except, to point number 2, it isn’t. 

This is a Hawthorn in 2008 style of opportunity for the Patriots, who now need to be able to take advantage of an unbelievable vacuum in the AFC and make the Super Bowl.  

So far in the playoffs, they’ve played the Chargers without an – the commentators talked about Justin Herbert like he was Kris Moutinho when Sean O’Malley battered him into oblivion without a knockout – and a Texans team also without and offensive line and missing their only difference making receiver in Nico Collins.  

They should have won those games and, albeit uninspiringly, they did.  

Now they play another excellent defence in the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game. However, again, they come up against a team that has a major offensive issue this time in the form of a broken ankle for Bo Nix who is out for the rest of the year. 

In his stead, there is Jarrett Stidham.  

Patriot fans might remember Jarrett Stidham for being the initial plan for the quarterback position post Tom Brady but pre-Mac Jones, before Bill Belichick decided the version of Cam Newton that could no longer throw the ball was a better option. 

Given who the Broncos are going to wheel out there at quarterback, what has been a house money season all year long just shifted to one that carries massive stakes. It went from Carmy making beef sandwiches, to Carmy taking money from a possible gangster that he knows to open a fine dining restaurant: the stakes, which were always big personally, just became big externally.  

Like Dan Campbell said after the 2023 NFC Championship Game loss, the return is not guaranteed.  

While it looks like a changing of the guard season in the NFL, it would be a brave person to assume that each of Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, and Josh Allen all won’t be in the AFC championship game next season.  

I am, however, willing to go out on a limb and say that an opportunity as tasty Jarrett Stidham won’t be there again. 

I expect the Patriots to beat the Broncos next week. The market expects it as well, with Neds pricing them as $1.35 favourites.  

But this goes beyond expectation.  

They have to win this game.