After a bounceback win against the Eagles, the Patriots righted their 2019 season ship. The best NFL betting sites still like the team’s chances as Super Bowl favorites while the top rated sportsbooks will still find plenty of people willing to bet the Pats are headed back to the championship for the fourth-straight season.
With AFC matchups with Houston and Kansas City still to come, the Patriots are still very much in the driver’s seat in the AFC, but Baltimore is just one game behind them, leaving little margin for error. How the Patriots do against the Texans and Chiefs will determine if the Pats get to stay home for the playoffs, or if they’ll face a challenge like last year, when they had to pull out an overtime win in Kansas City.
After a devastating loss to the Ravens, the Texans still look like pretenders, but getting to face the Patriots on their homefield in Houston will be a big boost. Meanwhile the Chiefs will have to travel to New England, where they also lost to the Patriots last season.
Right now it’s a good bet that the Pats will have faced the top four teams in the AFC over the course of this six-game stretch that has the team already with a 1-1 record. All pose different challenges, especially in the mobile quarterback department, but it would still seem that the Chiefs explosive passing game is the biggest threat in the coming weeks.
But the Chiefs flawed defense is a reason for optimism. Kansas City has struggled against the run this year but New England has struggled to run the ball. Usually something has to give, but in this game something would have to happen — either the Chiefs finally stopping the run or the Patriots finally running it.
The best case scenario for the Patriots would be to see Baltimore and Kansas City face each other in the divisional round. Those are the two best threats to New England and not having to play them both would improve New England’s chances in the playoffs.
The best thing the Patriots can do is keep on winning. They still control their fate and are a team who usually plays their best football as the weather gets colder. If they do that once again they’ll be firmly atop the list of AFC favorites once again.