The NFL schedule has been released and with that, it means that fans can start buying tickets for the 2020 season. Over the course of the next few weeks, we here at uSports will be dissecting the regular season schedules of each of the NFL teams, and tell you what games you are going to want to attend.
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The Patriots, after losing in Week 17 to the Dolphins, dropped them to the three-seed in the AFC, and led them to losing to the Titans in the Wild Card round in what was something no one really expected. People have seemed to forget that the Patriots went 12-4 last year. Will they go 12-4 again in 2020? Personally I don’t think so, I don’t even think they win 10 games. That is simply because Jarrett Stidham is not Tom Brady. I know that Bill Belichik is still to coach but if Brady couldn’t perform at his usual level with the weapons around him, there is no way that Stidham does. Would I like to see Stidham prove me wrong, yes, but the odds are slim. There have been rumors that either Cam Newton or Colin Kaepernick could be signed by the team but who really knows. Julian Edelman is getting up there in age, Mohamed Sanu is an interesting piece but is not what he once was. N’Keal Harry, although he was hurt, still performed his rookie year. The experiment of having multiple running backs with Sony Michel, James White and Rex Burkhead, did not seem to work and Michel is recovering from foot surgery. The offensive line is also not what it once was. People have been saying that the defense will carry this team once again, but I am not sure. Stephon Gilmore is an elite corner, but Devin and Jason McCourty as well as Patrick Chung are all past their primes, Dont’a Hightower just turned 30 and there is no real promise around him at the linebacker position, especially with the departure of Kyle Van Noy and Jamie Collins in free agency. The Patriots will be the talk of the league, regardless of how they do this year because of all the storylines going on and it will be on Belichick to limit the noise like he has so well for his tenure as New England’s head coach.
Full New England Patriots Schedule:
Week 1: vs. Miami Dolphins
Week 2: at Seattle Seahawks
Week 3: vs. Las Vegas Raiders
Week 4: at Kansas City Chiefs
Week 5: vs. Denver Broncos
Week 6: BYE
Week 7: vs. San Francisco 49ers
Week 8: at Buffalo Bills
Week 9: at New York Jets
Week 10: vs. Baltimore Ravens
Week 11: at Houston Texans
Week 12: vs. Arizona Cardinals
Week 13: at Los Angeles Chargers
Week 14: at Los Angeles Rams
Week 15: at Miami Dolphins
Week 16: vs. Buffalo Bills
Week 17: vs. New York Jets
The Patriots will have a tough time this year. For a team that got worse when a lot of the teams on their schedule got better. Looking at the games prior to their Week 6 bye, I think the Patriots will almost certainly beat the Raiders, they will have a legitimate chance of beating the Dolphins, but I give them little to no chance of beating the Seahawks, Chiefs and Broncos. That Broncos game in Week 5, the odds go up slightly because it is a home game, but all three of those teams on paper have electric offenses, as well as above average defenses which could give the Patriots fits. After their bye week, the thing that immediately jumps off the page for me is Week 13 to Week 15 where the Patriots will have three straight road games, including going from Los Angeles after two weeks back to the East coast. I am not worried about this stretch at all from an exhaustion standpoint, as although Week 14 against the Rams is a Thursday night game, they are already in Los Angeles so there should be no travel issues, and then they get an extra time to prepare for Week 15 as after the Patriots play the Rams, they won’t play the Dolphins until ten days later. There are some more winnable games post bye week for the Patriots, I don’t think the Rams will be much of an issue, and the Jets are by far the worst team in that division, so that is three wins right there. I know that I have been ripping on their team as a whole so far, but they still have the greatest coach in NFL history in Belichick, a defense that can make plays when healthy, as long as Stidham doesn’t completely under perform, there are some games where the Patriots can come out victorious. The games I am thinking of specifically are Week 11 against Houston, Week 12 versus Arizona, one of those two Bills games, Week 13 against the Chargers, and Week 15 against Miami. I give the Patriots slim odds to beat the 49ers, Ravens and Cardinals, despite all of those games being at home. This season for New England will be different from anyone it has had in almost 21 years. They can go 9-7, 10-6, maybe make the playoffs and people will consider that a success, or they go 5-11 and people will be calling for Belichick’s firing.
Being someone from the New England area, I will always keep an eye on them despite not being a fan of the team. I will also be willing to go to Patriots’ games this season just given how things could go either really well, or really poorly. Here are the five Pats’ games I will try to attend this coming season:
- Week 4: Patriots at Chiefs
- Week 5: Broncos at Patriots
- Week 11: Texans at Patriots
- Week 15: Patriots at Dolphins
- Week 17: Jets at Patriots
The thing with these five games, outside the Chiefs game in Week 4, I wouldn’t be extremely surprised if the Patriots were to win those games. I feel against Kansas City, Patrick Mahomes is going to be dialed in, throwing the ball all over the field to Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelcee and Clyde Edwards-Helaire will give New England headaches as a good runner as pass catcher. Week 5 against Denver, they have a really good offense on paper with guys like Drew Lock, Cortland Sutton, Jerry Jeudy, Noah Fant, Melvin Gordon and Phillip Lyndsay, among others. The fact that the Broncos have so many options on offense, that could be an issue for the Patriots, regardless of how good their defense might be. Plus the Broncos’ defense is no joke with Von Miller and Bradley Chubb coming off the edge pressuring the quarterback. Week 11 against Houston is an interesting one for me. Deshaun Watson is a great quarterback, one of the best in football, but the biggest issue with the Texans as a whole is that a lot of their players are injury prone, and that could play a factor in their success. If the Texans are healthy, I think this game could be competitive, but if not, the Patriots could steal a win here. Plus, I think Texans’ head coach Bill O’Brien is trying to sabotage this team. Week 15 against Miami, I mentioned earlier this is the third straight road game for the Patriots and although they get extra time to prepare coming back from Los Angeles, we are getting late enough into the season that just because you have more time to prepare, it might simply not mater given all the wear and tear of an NFL season. Both of these teams will be fighting for second place in the AFC East most likely, and this game might just decide who gets it. Finally, Week 17 against the Jets, I don’t think the Jets will be good at all this season, and this could be just what the Patriots need in the final week of the season to make the playoffs. Being that this game is at home as well will give New England a significant advantage.
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