The 2017 AFC Championship was a dogfight down to the end, with the young and hungry Jags pushing the Patriots to the very limit. Really, the Jags exposed the Patriots in a way that the Eagles would build off of in Super Bowl 52. They had quite a few chances to put the game away, but the Pats do what they always do, hang on and make the key plays at the end.
Despite some limitations of Blake Bortles, the Jags are one of the teams vying to dethrone the Patriots from AFC supremacy, and they certainly have the defensive pieces to make it happen. But this is a different Patriots team than the one that played last January and that includes both good reasons and bad reasons.
What can we determine from last year’s matchup? That this will be a test for the 2018 Pats that truly tells if they’ve put the problems of last season behind them.
The Patriots had a slow start to the game, falling into a 14-3 hole. The Jags sniffed out most of the underneath stuff Tom Brady, with a stitched-up hand, loves to rely on. Much of the offense relied shot plays to Cooks, or the PI calls that came with them sometimes. It was a true grind-it-out offensive performance and one that will be hard to replicate with entirely new pieces.
The simple fact is that the primary players outside of Brady who helped the Pats win this game are no longer on the team. But the flip side of the coin is that the defense which made just enough plays to win is much improved.
So which side wins?
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