Patriots - With some of their players back from injury the Patriots are beginning to play a little better. They've won their last four game, and should win their fifth after next weeks date with Miami. Earlier in the season I figured they would make the playoffs, only thanks to the weak division they're playing in this year, but that they'd be eliminated in the first round. Now I'm upgrading to them winning at least one, maybe two playoff rounds, especially if they clinch the third AFC seed next week... here's hoping the Bengals lose to Kansas City, but they won't.
Now for the bad news.
It's injuries that have really held them back this year, and just as they were getting their feet on the ground again three players go down last night due to injury, Bruschi, Samuel, and Johnson, all of whom are key, but Bruschi and Samuel are essential, I think, to them getting anywhere. What does this mean for the playoffs? Hard to tell, as the Patriots are notorious for being stingy on the injury info, and for good reason. The Patriots official website offered this helpful factoid on Bruschi's condition: "The team offered no word on his condition." Uh, thanks.
The other bad news, from my point of view, is that of their ten wins so far this season, only two have been from playoff contending teams, the Steelers and the Buccaneers. The Steelers still have to win this Sunday to make the playoffs, and the Bucs need to win as well to wrap up their division. Earlier in the season I was comforted by the fact that the beat up Patriots had gone 4-4 while enduring what seemed to be one of the toughest schedules they'd ever had, facing five division champions from the year before. But now that only one of those teams, the Colts, have won their division, it looks more like the Patriots went .500 against a much weaker looking schedule than we first thought, and only managed to beat the Steelers and the Falcons, neither of which a division leaders this year.
The Pats have actually done fairly well, however, considering they've had one of the worst defenses of any team, thanks to the injuries. Over the previous three games before last nights Jets game the Pats had only allowed 10 points. Not bad. A good sign the defense had come around. But then the Jets, the 3-12 Jets, were allowed to score 21 points. Okay, I'll only charge 14 against the Pats defense as 7 came off a Brady pick, the defense couldn't do anything about that. But those 14 points came in the fourth quarter, exactly when you want to be able to shut a team down. That concerns me. Maybe it was the injuries. Maybe they didn't want to risk more injuries and they knew they'd win anyway. I don't know.
So what's to make of this mixed bag? Will the Patriots three-peat the Super Bowl this year? In all likelyhood, no. But I feel they've at least got a shot, however small, which I didn't feel before. Maybe Manning goes down. Maybe these last three injuries amount to nothing. And what exactly would it do to Indianapolis if by some fluke the Pats make the AFC Championship game and beat them, in Indianapolis? That would be epic. It won't happen, but after the Red Sox 0-3 comeback against the Yankees I've learned you never know. So I'll be watching this post season with more interest than I thought I would have two months ago, and maybe, just maybe, Belichick can pull another rabbit out of his hat.
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