The New England Patriots put the NFL on notice in Week 16.
Although New England’s offense has struggled for most of the season, Tom Brady and Co. took care of business Saturday in the Patriots’ 24-17 win over the Buffalo Bills at Gillette Stadium.
The Patriots clinched their 11th consecutive AFC East title with the victory, which Stephen A. Smith explained Monday on ESPN’s “First Take” went a long way toward showing New England remains a force to be reckoned with despite its rollercoaster 2019 campaign.
“What I peeled from this game is the AFC needs to be worried,” Smith said. “We all need to be worried because we don’t want to see the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl this year. Not when the option is Patrick Mahomes or Lamar Jackson, or Deshaun Watson since the Houston Texans won the AFC South courtesy of Jameis Winston giving away interceptions like Christmas gifts for crying out loud. We don’t want to see that. But that’s the situation right now.
“Tom Brady, I was looking at certain things. I was looking at his pocket presence. I was looking at his ability to feel the rush, to feel oncoming rushes and to know how to evade them or to get rid of the ball. The mistakes were minimal. He was moving the chains. And when you look at it from that perspective, the way that New England won this game Saturday is the way they beat you come playoff time. They might annihilate occasionally the Los Angeles Chargers of the world, people like that, but whether it’s an AFC Championship Game or a divisional playoff game from years ago, the bottom line is there’s been plenty of tough games that the New England Patriots have been in and they found a way to pull it out — key defensive plays, moving the chains, not making mistakes, capitalizing off the mistakes you made. And when I watched New England on Saturday and I knew they were gonna win … my mentality was, ‘Damn it. Look at them find a way to make things happen.’ ”
The Baltimore Ravens locked up the AFC’s No. 1 seed on Sunday with a win over the Cleveland Browns. The Patriots currently own the No. 2 seed and can clinch a first-round bye plus home-field advantage in the divisional round with a win/tie or a Kansas City Chiefs loss/tie in Week 17.
“Baltimore and Kansas City had better be ready because let me tell you something, this year’s Super Bowl has an opportunity to be epic,” Smith said. “Whether it’s San Francisco, it’s Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay, it’s Seattle with Russell Wilson or it’s Drew Brees with New Orleans — not discounting Minnesota, whatever, but I’m just saying the likelihood is one of those four teams is gonna be the ones in it. One of those teams going up against Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes is what we’re salivating for. If we get New England instead, there’s gonna be a whole lot of miserable football fans out.”
Could you imagine how braggadocious Patriots fans will be if New England wins a seventh Lombardi Trophy this season? It might be time for the rest of the football world to stop pooh-poohing the possibility.
