Pats Posits: Super Bowl Week LFG

After eight Super Bowl trips the New England Patriots have had their fair share of all kinds of Super Bowl bye week intrigue. The first time around against the Rams they were the scrappy backup QB underdogs, facing a mighty passing attack that was looking for a second Super Bowl.

It was supposed to be the birth of the Rams dynasty, instead it was the birth of the Patriots’. And here we are, 18 years later, after Spygate, Deflategate, TB12gate and every other little gate in between, once again in the only game that truly counts when you’re a dynasty.

Now we’re debating how good the AFC East has been over the last two decades and whether or not Julian Edelman is a hall of famer. I’ll take that over Super Bowls 42 or 49 bye week intrigue any time.

I always try to look at each year in and of itself. That’s what Bill Belichick does. With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to look back and connect common threads between these individual teams.

The 2018 Patriots have some of the very best of them — a tough, resilient football team that plays hard together. They’ve made the clutch plays. And they’re another in a long list of fully functional football machines.

Did they suck on the road this year? Yup. But were they also one of the most balanced and fundamentally sound teams of the Belichick era at home? Definitely.

That home team has showed up twice in the playoffs against two very good teams. Hate them all you want, but the Patriots proved their doubters wrong by following the path of the 2001 and 2004 teams, teams that won the AFC Championship on the road against a favored opponent, redeeming their in-season stumbles.

Because they sucked so badly on the road this year made it doubly satisfying, especially against such a talented team who had haunted them a couple times in recent history.

Let’s hop into a bunch of Posits on some of the key storylines.

I don’t get into social media arguments about Patriots-related stuff but I don’t see how Julian Edelman isn’t a Hall of Fame of lock. It’s the Hall of FAME. Not the Hall of Consistent Statistical Performance or Whatever Else. With the way things are shaking out and one Super Bowl game to go I don’t even think this will be a debate a week from now, but I guess it is now for reasons I don’t really care to dive into at this point. Impossible Super Bowl play. Game-winning clutchness in the fourth quarter and overtime of two Super Bowls ALREADY, with ONE TO GO??

— Debating Hall of Famers from the Patriots era after Beilchick is difficult. Ty Law did was a shutdown corner before shutdown corners before he led the Patriots to their first two Super Bowl wins. Richard Seymour did the dirty work in three Super Bowl wins and an undefeated regular season. But you have to look closer for his splashy playoff and Super Bowl game-changing plays. Edelman’s are just as obvious as Law’s, ALREADY. If you’re going to pick a third Hall of Famer after BB and TB it’s JE.

— Todd Gurley is the key piece for the Rams and the player that is most capable of making the Patriots defense look like they did on the road this year. The Rams should know Gurley on Hightower/Van Noy is the matchup to focus on. C.J. Anderson tore the Pats up in 2015 but I think this is a different defense with Hightower playing and Elandon Roberts who is an easy personnel matchup to insert when Anderson comes on.

— J.C. Jackson and Jason McCourty are both good matchups against Cooks, who we know can defeated at the line of scrimmage. Really, it’s Stephon Gilmore on Robert Woods that’s the nicest matchup. Gilmore will give up a play or two to Woods but that will be it.

— Cordarrelle Patterson has the chance to bust a kickoff return TD or some trickeration. The best way to attack aggressive interior tackles is misdirection and surprises like wham blocks from Gronk/Dwayne Allen. Having a plan for Suh and Donald is everything to this offensive gameplan.

— The Pats have all the offensive pieces. Here in Week 21 health is everything. Michel, Burkhead and White are all available. Hogan and Dorsett aren’t going to catch 10 balls but each will be ready to chip in a key catch here and there to keep the chains moving. Edelman is in his prime and Gronk is still a tight end beast. Sprinkle in Patterson here and there and you have all the weapons needed.

— How do I prepare for another heart-pounding Super Bowl? I could barely handle the Chiefs game! I totally get it, those of us wishing for one easy Super Bowl. It’s uncanny that there hasn’t been one in eight tries. As much as I am wishing for it as well, it’s getting harder not to see a weird game from the outset that isn’t the white-hot start we’ve loved seeing in the first two playoff rounds. A good start has been hard to come by in the Super Bowls, and that’s probably why they’ve all been close. So who knows, if the juggernaut we saw in KC and vs LAC shows up in Atlanta we just might get our stress-free Super Bowl win.