Forget the division. Now I see the Patriots playing in the AFCCG

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chevss454 said:
The Athletic's power rankings after week 9. updated today

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The Athletic gave midseason grades to each team

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The bottom 10 teams, #23-32, comprise no fewer than 11 of the Patriots 17 games...and still 5 of the remaining 8! And amazingly, that DOESN'T include the plucky-but-undermanned Panthers.

This schedule is legendarily weak.
 
chevss454 said:
The Athletic's power rankings after week 9. updated today

G46x-RDW0AAiCRR


The Athletic gave midseason grades to each team

G47G-maW4AApA5f
Click to expand...
What a weird year. Power rankings are all over the place. I've seen Pats as high as 3 and low as 11. Broncos at 1 and at 13. Last year Chiefs at 1 and outside of the top 10. Colts at 1 last week and as low as 8 or 9.

Basically we can tell who sucks and who doesn't suck. But we can't seem to tell who is a real contender, especially in the AFC.
 
Flagg the Wanderer said:
What a weird year. Power rankings are all over the place. I've seen Pats as high as 3 and low as 11. Broncos at 1 and at 13. Last year Chiefs at 1 and outside of the top 10. Colts at 1 last week and as low as 8 or 9.

Basically we can tell who sucks and who doesn't suck. But we can't seem to tell who is a real contender, especially in the AFC.
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Exactly - I think the bottom eight or so teams in most of the rankings I've seen are pretty accurate. :biggrin:
 
TipRoast said:
Exactly - I think the bottom eight or so teams in most of the rankings I've seen are pretty accurate. :biggrin:
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I agree with your precise selection of text to bold. I'm not sure we know who doesn't suck. Atlanta, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Carolina, Dallas, Chicago, Cincinnati all might suck.
 
People talking about the schedule being weak, that might be true but the Pats didn’t make up the schedule. They can only play who’s up next and control their own destiny.
 
AkPatsFan said:
People talking about the schedule being weak, that might be true but the Pats didn’t make up the schedule. They can only play who’s up next and control their own destiny.
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Sure. We're wondering how much we can know about the team, and how battle tested they will be when they are facing the top teams.
 
AkPatsFan said:
People talking about the schedule being weak, that might be true but the Pats didn’t make up the schedule. They can only play who’s up next and control their own destiny.
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The Pats have also destroyed most of the teams on their schedule which IMO is an indicator of how good they are. Beating Buffalo at Buffalo was huge to me. KC with Mahomie has yet to do that in the regular season.
 
AkPatsFan said:
People talking about the schedule being weak, that might be true but the Pats didn’t make up the schedule. They can only play who’s up next and control their own destiny.
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Of course! A few of the best Tom Brady teams had the benefit of 6 games vs. absolutely trash AFCE teams but went on to flex their dominance in the playoffs. But I don't think it's unfair for anyone to question a team's true medal, mid-season, when that team has played a weak schedule. No one knows if their success is overinflated and we won't until they play out the string.

This is a big game for the Pats. The Bucs are viewed as an elite NFL team, a true Super Bowl contender. Tampa should be favored to win in all of their home games. The Pats can lose this game and still walk away with a win from the court of public opinion. The 2001 Pats were in almost this exact position when they faced a 7-1 Rams team in week 10. Pats lost by a TD but they beat the crap out of the Rams, physically, from start to finish in that game. That was the game where I first started to feel like we might have something here and low and behold, they never lost another game that season.
 
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