The 2025 New England Patriots are one lucky team

Wednesday 1/28/26

I think one would be hard pressed at this point to deny that the 2025 New England Patriots are a very lucky team. Sometimes you get the breaks, but these Patriots seem to get all the breaks.

Had C.J. Stroud not turned in one of the worst performances by an NFL quarterback in the history of the playoffs, the Patriots very well could have lost to the Texans. Before that, the Patriots got a ripe-for-the-picking LA team in Foxborough in January. That was a nice match-up for them. Then you had Denver quarterback Bo Nix remaining healthy long enough to beat the Bills, before getting injured. Having seen what I've seen from these Patriots, I don't believe they would have beaten Denver at Denver with Nix playing, nor do I think they would have won at home against Josh Allen and the Bills.

As it was, they barely beat the Broncos with Jarrett Stidham. I'd written here that this could be a tough one, and it was. The Broncos, in my view, basically let the Patriots win this game. They were dominating the first portion. The score was only 7-0, but the Patriots were unable to do anything and you had the feeling that this wasn't going to be a high-scoring affair.

The Broncos got down around the Patriots ten yard line, and I believed they could have gone a long way to finishing them off right then and there. They had a fourth-and-one, and instead of taking the points, they elected to go for it with this back-up quarterback who hadn't started an NFL game in an age, let alone played in a game of this magnitude.

But it was even worse--the Broncos called the type of low percentage play I see the Bears call a bunch in this situation, in which the fourth-and-one is twisted into this quasi Hail Mary job, with the quarterback backpeddling and then throwing off his back foot to a receiver who isn't all that open and seems further away than he is.

And it was then that I thought the Patriots had a chance to win this game. I thought that was a gift. The Broncos took New England off of life support. People will say it was only 7-0, but that's the scoreboard. Not all scores are equal when they're the same. If you follow me.

Did the Broncos not have a weather report? Weather doesn't come out of nowhere. You know what it's going to be. We're not in wagons rolling across the prairie. Incompetence. And analytics. Going by the analytics script will cause you to lose. You need to be able to think contextually. But, people can't do that anymore, including people in sports. That 10-0 would have been like 21-0.

Christian Gonzalez is always hyped, but he's overrated. He was torched for that first score. He should have been torched for another, but the Patriots got lucky. People will remember the interception, but that was a pop-up and he happened to be there. Anyone would have made that play.

I thought Josh McDaniels had a poor game. As did Drake Maye. He's clearly not ready for this stage yet. I don't know if he ever will be. You don't know something like that until you see it. Until a player proves it. He didn't turn the ball over, so there's that, which is good. If he had, the Patriots likely would have lost. The Patriots only got their touchdown because of a woeful Stidham turnover in the shadow of the Broncos' end zone. It's not like the Patriots could drive down the field at any time in that game.

Maye is all off in terms of his footing and his mechanics. He short-armed a number of easy passes. Their were also some bad drops by Patriots receivers on these checkdowns in the flats. The best part of Maye's game in these playoffs has been his legs. He's been their best rusher. Which you don't want. It's like in baseball, though: Speed doesn't slump. You can always run if you're able to run. You don't get worse at running when you're healthy. Passing is harder. And right now, as a passer, Maye isn't close to all there. He will have to be much better for the Patriots to have a chance against Seattle.

And still, it took all of this--the horrible decision, the bad quarterback play by a back-up--as well as the weather for the Patriots to win this game. Barely. Do they win without that snowstorm? Because once it started, who ever had the lead was going to win. You needed to be ahead at that point. So long as you didn't turn it over near your goal line, you would prevail. (Personally, I love a weather game. A contest in the elements. Low-scoring, fight-it-out, claw, scape, battles. I don't want a dome or a retracting roof or palm trees. This is a great part of football, which we'll be moving away from as more teams go indoors, because that's how the world works now: Everything gets worse and more homogenous/bland.)

The Patriots' strategy became one of not putting the ball on the ground and then punting. Their punter, incidentally, was awful. As was their field goal kicker, and spare me the weather thing because there was a guy who used to kick in these parts who proved you can still get it done then. The punter was worse, though.

I swear, one play was designed for Maye to throw the ball out of bounds. That was the goal of the play. Not a completion, but the killing off of a down. So that they could punt. I was reminded of the earliest days of football, before the forward pass, when a 7-6 final was indicative of a shootout, and a team would punt on third down because you had a better chance of forcing a turnover on defense down at the other end of the field than you did of driving there on offense.

Will Campbell was bad again. He's in liability territory.

Who was good for the Patriots? There's one answer to that question: The defensive line. The Patriots' pass rush has been the best thing going for them in this postseason. If the Patriots beat the Seahawks, it'll be because of their defense. I mean, you never know, but that's my feeling going in, based on what I've seen.

I think the luck runs out and the Patriots lose by at least two scores, but obviously I hope I'm wrong and they steal one, which is what this would be like. What the whole thing would be like. Steal a game, and steal a title in a year where you had no business or expectation of winning one.

You don't know if you'll be back here. It might be a generation or two later. People assume that there will be this year in, year out success, and a team will contend for a title annually, but that rarely happens. It happens with teams led by Wayne Gretzky and Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan and Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes and Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Look at Dan Marino. Goes to the Super Bowl his second season in the league at twenty-three. Same deal as Drake Maye, right? Marino never went back again. Made a conference title game the next year and then in the early nineties, but that was it. This is the norm. Pretty much no matter how good you are.

How strange is to think, though, if you're a person who does think, and you know your history, that with a win in the Super Bowl, the Patriots will break the tie they hold for most titles with the Pittsburgh Steelers? The New England Patriots would be like the New York Yankees in baseball or the Montreal Canadiens in hockey.

I wonder what my dad would have made of this possible bit of news had some agent from the future taken a seat next to him at that dump out in Foxborough in the early 1970s when my dad had season tickets and apprised him of what was a'comin'. My uncles are well into the Pats, but I think my dad would have savored this more.

A broadcast note: Tony Romo was bad. He's obviously not prepared. Mails it in. Kept talking about the Patriots and their attention to detail and this was clearly just a guy using the old broadcaster cliches from the Belichick-Brady era as though this was the same operation, when it's an almost entirely different operation. Like this is just how it is for the team that hails from new England and always will be. You can tell he does no prep work. Just showing up in order to collect a check.

As I've said, I don't think the schedule thing holds much water. The Patriots were tested enough. There aren't many good teams. The weak schedule allowed them to find their footing and confidence. Develop a belief in themselves.

People are foolishly making this big deal about how they just beat the number one defense, and the number two defense, and the number four defense, or whatever it, and how no team has beaten three of the top five defenses to get to the Super Bowl, but it's not as if the the Pats won these games because of their offense.

People make little sense because people are stupid and incapable of successfully navigating the waters of thought. You're touting the offense when you eked out a 10-7 win? You didn't win that game because of what you did with the ball; you won because of what you did when you didn't have it. Well, that and a quarterback who might not be one of the fifty best quarterbacks in the league, a bone-headed decision, and a fortuitously timed winter storm.

And it took all of those things for you to win. So, yes, I do think that's pretty lucky. But I'd still prefer that luck to last through another game, or, better yet, for the Patriots not to need that luck at all.