Make no mistake: A win in Buffalo over the AFC-favorite Bills was a massive step for the New England Patriots. But the schedule that lies ahead is what can make a victory like that really matter.
Over the next eight weeks, the Patriots will play one team that currently has a winning record (Week 10, at the 4-1 Buccaneers). They’ll face a Jets team that is sitting winless at 0-5, they’ll face four teams that are currently 1-4 (Saints, Titans, Browns, Giants), as well as the Falcons (2-2) and Bengals (2-3).
That schedule is even easier when you examine it more closely.
The Saints’ lone win came against … the 1-4 Giants.
The Titans’ lone win came aginst the 2-3 Cardinals.
The Bengals have been noncompetitive since losing Joe Burrow in Week 2, getting outscored 113-37 while going 0-3. (The Browns beat the Packers and the Giants beat the Chargers, giving them one good win apiece.)
The famed website Tankathon provides a neat and tidy list of teams’ remaining schedules, from hardest to easiest, based on opponents’ winning percentages. The Patriots have the easiest remaining schedule — by a mile.
With an opponents’ winning percentage of just .305, the Patriots’ remaining schedule is significantly easier than the Broncos, who have the second-easiest remaining schedule with a .407 opponents’ winning percentage.
The .102 difference between the 32nd and 31st-ranked teams is greater than the difference between the 31st and 18th-ranked (.492) teams.
It’s not at all a stretch to say that Sunday’s game in New Orleans kicks off the juiciest stretch of potentially beneficial football for the Patriots since the end of the 2021 season.
That time around, rookie Mac Jones and the Patriots collapsed, going from 9-4 (and in the No. 1 seed in the AFC) after Week13 to just 10-7 by season’s end. Their lone win in those final four weeks only came against the dreadful Jaguars. They lost their wind-game rematch against the Bills and then ultimately got blown out in Buffalo on a Wild Card Saturday to end their season with a thud.
This season figures to involve a better journey.
To be fair, though, nobody should expect the Patriots to go 8-0 or 7-1 over this upcoming stretch. With the Patriots already coming off two consecutive victories, a 10-game win streak from a team with some notable talent deficiencies on the roster feels next to impossible. Plus, the Patriots’ early-season loss to the Raiders (who are 0-4 since) showed they could lose to anyone on any given Sunday, and their five-turnover showing in a loss to Pittsburgh exposed some ball-security flaws that could certainly come back to haunt them.
Yet 6-2? That feels reasonable, and it could have the Patriots fulfilling all of those preseason nine-win prognostications before even hitting their bye week.
“We have a job to do,” Mike Vrabel said with an air of nonchalance this week. “It’s the same every week. I think if we are consistent each and every week, I think it allows us to get past some of those things. We’re disappointed after we lost. Happy when we won, disappointed when we lost. I think we’ve responded. We’ll have to make sure that we’re doing everything that we possibly can to prepare to go on and handle another tough environment. Just being able to handle the road environment, the crowd noise and everything else, I’m sure they’ll be excited.”
The Bills will visit Foxboro after that bye on Dec. 14, and it’s hard to envision what the Ravens — currently 1-4 — will look like when they host the Patriots in Week 16. But it feels safe to assume the Patriots will have a very winnable game after Christmas when they visit the Jets, and their Week 18 opponent — the Dolphins — is currently in a spiral.
Regardless of all those unknowns, what the Patriots should have by the time mid-December rolls around is an opportunity. A chance to accelerate the rebuild by taking advantage of the easiest schedule imaginable and giving every young player on the roster some invaluable postseason experience.
A double-digit win total accumulated against some terrible football teams won’t make the Patriots actual Super Bowl contenders, and it’ll also work toward next year’s schedule being a lot more difficult. Yet it would also inject some serious life into a franchise that sorely needs it, and it would by necessity involve some significant growth for Drake Maye along the way.
A lot can be gained by proving that New Orleans, Tennessee, the Jets and the whole lot of ’em are in a class well below New England’s. And the track begins on Sunday at the Superdome.
Some enormous turnarounds have happened before in the NFL, with the 49ers going from 6-10 in 1980 to 13-3 with a Super Bowl win a year later in 1981. The ’99 Rams improved upon a 4-12 season the year prior to go 13-3 and win a Super Bowl. Right here in New England, the 2001 Patriots shook off a 5-11 record in Bill Belichick’s debut season to go 11-5 en route to the first Super Bowl victory in franchise history.
Going that far right now, though, might require a little bit of imagination. What’s indisputable, though, is that it’s now time for Mike Vrabel’s squad to feast on the NFL’s worst teams. How much they capitalize on this generous gift from the scheduling gods will ultimately tell the tale of the 2025 Patriots.