The Boston Globe called the Patriots the established favorite in the East. They sat at No. 6 in Peter King's "Fine Fifteen." They were declared 10.5-point favorites against the Dolphins this week.
More than a few folks have begun thinking that an AFC East title and a first-round bye have now become mere formalities for the Patriots. But looking at the road ahead, the Patriots have a lot of work to do to reach either of those goals.
The schedule alone is enough to worry the Patriots, whose softest opponents are behind them. They'll first host the Dolphins, who gave the Patriots the worst whooping at home that New Englanders have seen in the Bill Belichick era. The Pats then travel to Indy to face the undefeated Colts before hosting the Jets, who outplayed and beat the Patriots earlier this season. The Jets have since sputtered, but with a bye week and a home game against 3-4 Jacksonville, they'll have time to get back on track before their trip to Foxborough.
It gets harder for the Patriots the following week, when they go to New Orleans to face another undefeated team in the Saints. The stretch is capped off with a trip to Miami, a place where the Patriots have fared well recently but struggled historically.
That schedule will only become tougher as time passes, according to Belichick.
"Every week, you will see [opponents have] more schemes, more offense, more defense, more schemes in the kicking game than you do in September," Belichick said in his news conference during the bye week. "As our volume increases, so does theirs, and therefore the multiples increase. It really becomes exponential, the number of matchups. You call one thing, and it could hit against 20 different things, so if you call 20 different things then it could hit against 4,000 different things and pretty soon … it’s a lot of multiples."
If the Patriots play perfectly in those five games, it's easy to picture them going 5-0 or 4-1. Then and only then would it be safe to call them AFC East favorites.
However, it's just as easy to picture a few miscues costing them some big plays, and if the Patriots go 2-3 in that time, the final four weeks of the regular season will be a dogfight for first place.
Tom Brady seems to be taking things — as usual — one week at a time.
"Nothing’s more important than Miami for us — a division game and the team that won the division last year," he said on Patriots All Access. "I think that just shows us all where we’re at and the things we’re going to need to do better."
Of course, the opponents are only half the battle. Injuries have already had a hand in the Patriots' season thus far, and knee surgery for starting defensive end Jarvis Green will make that stretch that much more difficult. Wes Welker has also been playing through a knee injury while Randy Moss has dealt with back pain.
In a football season, everyone's going to deal with some sort of pain, but should either of those ailments escalate, the Patriots' offense will take a significant hit.
The same can be said about Laurence Maroney, who's essentially the only healthy running back who's handled a featured-back workload. He's missed his fair share of games in his career, but the Patriots need him to remain healthy until Fred Taylor can return.
On top of that, this Patriots team has yet to win a road game on this continent. Playing in noisy venues proved to be a problem in their two losses this season, and things won't get any quieter in Indy or New Orleans. Their Week 17 matchup in Houston (5-3) could have more on the line than meets in the eye as well, as the Texans could be fighting for a playoff spot.
None of this is to say that the Patriots aren't in the best position among their AFC East foes — they are. They're 5-2, and despite their two losses to AFC teams (crucial in the event of a tiebreaker), the Jets already have three. If the Pats can win the rematch, the Jets will have four, and if the Pats can beat Miami, the Dolphins will have more conference losses as well.
But at this point, there are simply too many "ifs" to deem anyone a favorite. The Patriots have put themselves in a good position this year, but thanks to some costly mistakes in New York and Denver, they still need the grace of good fortune to get where they want to be.
