Patriots might be 4-5, but don’t discount chances of a run at the Super Bowl

There are a few teams out there right now that would be interesting picks as dark horse Super Bowl contenders.

Miami is one, with five wins in a row and a chance to extend that winning streak with Denver, the Jets and Bengals up next. Arizona has put itself in position in the NFC West, tied with the Rams and Seattle. Indy has been out there all year. The Vikings have recovered from a rough start with three wins in a row, the first one coming at Green Bay.

But I like New England, even if it’s hard to see them in that role having won three titles in the past six seasons.

The Patriots had some guys opt out of the season on the defensive side and have had some injuries, with Sony Michel and Julian Edelman on injured reserve. Just a few weeks ago New England was 2-5 and when you look at where the Buccaneers are in the standings and the whole Tom Brady-Bill Belichick deal, it looks like Brady is coming out on the right side of that thing. But I wouldn’t write off Belichick just yet.

I think what the Patriots needed to do is what every team always needs to do – find out who it is as a football team.

It’s different every year, especially when changing quarterbacks as drastically as New England did, bringing in Cam Newton. It takes a little while, and with what everyone went through in the offseason, not having the time to really be together, to get through the practice sessions or really dial in a game plan and a structure of what the offense looks like they’ve kind of had to do it all on the fly.

Patriots could take off with downhill run game

They’ve been trying to find what works for Newton. They’ve been trying to find what works with how their entire offense and defense is structured, and I really like what they’ve found with Damien Harris, their third-round draft pick in 2019. With Harris in there, they remind me a lot of what Baltimore was last year when Mark Ingram was healthy and really running downhill.

He was what Harris is for the Patriots right now: a physical downhill guy, and that’s such a good pairing with a quarterback that likes to get on the perimeter and use his legs and use zone reads.

They have a nice thing going.

The defense is solid. They took care of last year’s MVP on Sunday night. They controlled the game against Lamar Jackson and Baltimore, holding the Ravens to a season-low 17 points, and I don’t see any reason the Patriots can’t do that to every opponent they face from here on out.

I really like what they do running the football, and that’s going to frustrate a lot of teams. When you look at the AFC and potential playoff matchups, a team like Kansas City, it wants to score and it wants to score fast. It wants to play at its tempo. If a team can slow that tempo down, get a couple of stops, and keep Pat Mahomes and those guys on the sideline, that’s a lot of pressure that now shifts to the Chiefs.

That’s winning football, for me.

The Patriots also are close to getting Edelman back and, remember, he had the biggest day of his career with Newton as the quarterback, not Brady. If they keep that run game going, if Newton stays healthy and Harris is pounding it like he is, their receivers are going to be in a lot of one-on-one situations, a lot of advantageous situations.

In NFL, key is to not peak too early

Newton is going to be more comfortable as the season goes along, and the throws will come.

When I was with the Giants, Tom Coughlin used to talk about that all the time. You don’t want to peak too early. You don’t want to find who you are and get overly confident. You want to slowly build and find what you do really well and those are the teams that are going to make it the farthest, the teams that really know who they are, stick to what they do and can execute it. You want to hit a peak at the right time.

This thing is not a first-half of the season race. This is a long haul. The Patriots have their eyes set on big things and that team expects to be in the Super Bowl, regardless of what they’re saying on the outside.

There are going to be some really interesting matchups in the AFC East toward the end of the season. I know it’s all about the Dolphins and the Bills right now, but let’s just see what happens.

The Patriots are 4-5, but they’re starting to figure out who they are, and are they really that far off? I don’t think so. It’s not over for the Patriots.

Dolphins have edge in fantasy matchup

The Dolphins against the Broncos is an interesting matchup, schematically. Miami does a lot with its defense and when you look at what they did to Justin Herbert last week, a young quarterback, man, there were some looks there. Watching it on film, there were 10 guys moving around at the snap sometimes, so it’s really hard for a quarterback to know what he’s looking at and Justin had a hard time. I expect the Dolphins to do the same thing to Drew Lock, even though he has played more. I think you can get Drew in situations where he’s not exactly sure and he still might throw it. We saw that last week with the Raiders and the four interceptions, so the Dolphins I think are a good play.

This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 12:33 PM.