You know, I really don’t think it matters who they play or where. It just comes down to the Pats playing 60 minutes of their best football. If they do that, they should beat anybody in the NFL.
They don’t get blown out, so you know the games will be close, it’s just a question of whether or not they can put together six awesome games now.
It’s kind of the great unknown. On one hand, you could see a scenario where without Gronk their offense regresses and if their defense doesn’t get better on third downs, they just wouldn’t be able to score enough to keep up.
But this team always seems to rally at this time of year, regardless of injuries. Same thing happened after they lost arguably their defensive MVP in Andre Carter late in 2011.
We’ll see how it plays out, but I think all the potential AFC matchups have their advantages and disadvantages. But if the Pats show up for the whole game, they will make some noise.