Walkthrough: Make Straight the Patriots Way

The NFC and AFC Championship Games are set:

• New England Patriots at Denver Broncos: Sunday, January 25th, 3:00 PM Eastern.
• Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks: Sunday, January 25th, 6:30 PM Eastern.

How did we get here? What will next Sunday look like? Let’s meet the NFL’s Final Four.

New England Patriots

How the Patriots Got Here

Steel sharpens steel. But a blade that rarely cuts anything but butter never needs much sharpening anyway.

The Patriots played one of the softest schedules in NFL history. You could smear most of their opponents onto a bagel with a plastic spoon. Their schedule didn’t exactly battle-test them for the playoffs. But it didn’t leave them battle-scarred, either.

Drake Maye, his rookie offensive teammates, and a defense full of newcomers had the luxury of playing themselves into a cohesive unit as the season progressed. Late-season matchups with the Giants, Jets and Dolphins were glorified scrimmages. The Patriots spent much of the season executing plays exactly the way they were drawn up, on both sides of the ball, with little resistance. That had to be a boon to cohesion and development, to say nothing of morale. Adversity is a great teacher, but ease can be beneficial when it comes to honing fundamentals and boosting confidence.

Critically, the Patriots didn’t trip over anyone in the regular season. So they earned the right to host the Chargers, with their damp cardboard offensive line and no-name defense, on a chilly, windy night in Foxborough. They also earned the right to host the Texans, coming off a short week and missing top wide receiver Nico Collins, on the type of slushy January afternoon that only a certified Masshole could love.

The Patriots and Texans traded snowballs in the first quarter. Then C.J. Stroud lost Dalton Schultz – his go-to target with Collins out – and right tackle Tytus Howard to injuries. Mike Vrabel began blitzing. Stroud began panicking. A pick-6 by Marcus Jones on a Stroud blooper gave the Patriots a 14-10 lead.

The Texans defense did its best to force Drake Maye to trade turnovers with Stroud. But Maye simply couldn’t keep up. Stroud threw four interceptions before halftime. The Patriots failed to turn three of them into points, but Maye connected with Stefon Diggs for a touchdown to cap a drive after a quick Texans three-and-out, giving the Patriots a 21-10 lead at halftime.

Stroud simmered down and labored through a few field goal drives in the second half, one of which was basically pass-interference-and-kick. But it was clear that the Patriots defense would never, ever let the Texans anywhere near the end zone.

Eventually, the Texans defense buckled. Kayshon Boutte’s diving, one-handed touchdown grab gave the Patriots a 28-16 lead early in the fourth quarter. The Texans would never mount another serious threat, while the Patriots offense spent the fourth quarter running the ball effectively enough to play dump-and-chase.

And now, the Patriots get to face the Broncos with Jarrett Stidham at quarterback. Did … did Mike Vrabel save a pope’s life in a past life or something?

Coaching Situation

Mike Vrabel is more like the young Bill Belichick than the old Belichick could ever be: motivator, administrator, non-dictatorial disciplinarian, a football guy’s football guy.

A few too many hosannas may be sung to Vrabel for “rebuilding the culture” by jolly-stomping through a schedule that seemed to feature the Jets every other week. But Vrabel did similar things, often against similar opponents, when he coached the Titans. Winning games that you are supposed to win is relatively easy. Winning EVERY game that you are supposed to win – plus a couple you were supposed to lose – takes coaching.

Josh McDaniels remains phenomenal at crafting and installing game plans so long as he is not asked to do anything else.

Quarterback Situation

Drake Maye’s victories over Justin Herbert’s Chargers and C.J. Stroud’s Texans carry great symbolic significance.

Herbert, of course, is the five time Palme d’Or winner for Best Performance by a Quarterback, as awarded by the Tuesday Morning Film Critics Association. Stroud was a rookie phenom in 2023 whose development plateaued in his second year, stagnated a bit in his third and turned into a heap of ash on Sunday.

Maye fumbled twice against the Chargers and four times against the Texans. He had rough second and third quarters on Sunday. He is still learning how to cope with defenses who can put up a fight. But Maye also made enough clutch throws and runs to keep the Patriots in control of games in which Herbert and Stroud combined for a little more than zero of either. That puts Maye at the head of the NFL’s young quarterback class. (Herbert gets to remain a “young quarterback” forever, folks; he’s America’s sweetest summer child.)

Even if Maye isn’t quite as perfect as he looked at times during the regular season, it goes without saying that Maye will also be the best quarterback on the field, by far, in Denver next Sunday.

Patriots Offense

McDaniels’ offense isn’t trendy or flashy. It ranks near the middle of the pack in all your favorite tendencies and trends: motion, play-action, rollouts, screens, various personnel groupings, and so forth. There’s no “pet” tactic, like 13 personnel for the Rams or rollouts-and-screens for the Broncos. There’s a little bit of everything, but it’s all well-integrated, so the Patriots never look like they are running a kitchen sink offense. (See: the Dolphins.)

Patriots offensive trends may be distorted a bit by – you guessed it – their schedule. They ran 147 offensive plays while leading by 16-plus points in the regular season. Only the Seahawks got to squat on two-score leads as often, and they were less likely to be facing Brady Cook or Quinn Ewers while preserving those leads.

Similarly, the Patriots only executed 19 regular-season plays from a no-huddle offense, per the Sports Info Solutions database. McDaniels loved no-huddle tactics when Tom Brady was his quarterback. Maye might not be fond of them or be ready for them. But he also rarely needed them, because the Patriots found themselves in so few catchup situations.

McDaniels lines Maye up under center frequently, often with Jack Westover as a fullback or H-back. The Patriots used such tactics while playing with the lead in the slush on Sunday. But again: the Patriots offense might look different when trailing. They just rarely faced an opponent this year who could both rush Maye and accomplish anything on offense. And it may be another three weeks before they do.

Stefon Diggs is the all-purpose go-to guy who can still dust most cornerbacks with his precision route-running. McDaniels knows a thousand ways to get Diggs or Hunter Henry open in the hole between the underneath and deep zones of the defense. Kayshon Boutte was 11-238-3 on 15-plus air yard throws to the outside in the regular season.

Rhamondre Stevenson eluded at least one tackle on 23.1% of his carries. TreVeyon Henderson did so on just 11.7%. But Henderson is faster than bad news, so he produced four rushes of 40-plus yards. Neither back has looked all that unstoppable in the playoffs.

An offensive line headlined by rookies Will Campbell and Jared Wilson also went from “formidable” to “vulnerable” when the opposing defenses went from “laughable” to “Oh crap, it’s the Texans.”

Patriots Defense

The Patriots defense looks much, much better now than it did in the regular season. Seriously, a defense that held the Chargers to three points and forced four Stroud interceptions should have held the Jets to minus-13 points or so. The Patriots defense is peaking at the right time, perhaps because it is healthier now than it was for much of the year.

Vrabel and coordinator Terrell Williams like to keep Christian Gonzalez at right cornerback, Carlton Davis at left cornerback and Marcus Jones in the slot now that everyone is healthy. The Patriots cornerbacks match up well against most opponents.

Milton Williams, hurt for much of the second half of the season, returned to record four pressures each (per Pro Football Focus) in the Chargers and Texans games. Edge rusher Harold Landry and linebacker Robert Spillane, both of whom also missed some time late in the year, returned to provide a hard-hitting presence against a pair of shaky offensive lines. And K’Lavon Chaisson, who arrived in Foxborough as a journeyman rotation player on the defensive edge, has turned into Nick Bosa in the playoffs.

Patriots Special Teams

Marcus Jones returned two punts for touchdowns. Antonio Gibson added a kickoff return touchdown. The punt coverage unit allowed a touchdown.

Rookie kicker Andres Borregales missed four field goals of 40-49 yards but was a perfect 4-for-4 from 50-plus yards. It is worth noting that Borregales is a rookie, wasn’t called upon to kick any fourth-quarter game winners all year (he hit a fourth-quarter 52-yarder against the Bengals, but the Patriots already led), and will be kicking at Mile High Stadium in a January title game.

Despite Jones’ touchdowns and Borregales’ reliability, the Patriots ranked just 20th in special teams DVOA. I can only imagine that it takes a special kind of strength-of-schedule adjustment to account for crap like this:

Bottom Line

The Patriots are probably going to the Super Bowl. I cannot help but hate the way they are doing it. Jarrett Stidham in the championship game? This is deal-with-the-devil level stuff. At this rate, Sam Darnold’s oblique will explode while kneeling out the clock in the NFC Championship Game. Though the very possibility of Darnold in the Super Bowl has a Faustian brimstone whiff in its own right. The Patriots are getting rewarded for adhering to their rancid “Patriots Way” hookum. Their fans and media are already back in Forever Dynasty mode. It’s icky.

Still, the Patriots seized every opportunity. They didn’t fester in last place after going 8-26 in 2023-24. Those soft opponents included lots of serial festerers. They didn’t let the Falcons and Dolphins beat them. The Bills did. They earned the right to run C.J. Stroud through a car wash. Maye rebounded from early-game mistakes in the playoffs. Herbert and Stroud didn’t.

Assuming the Patriots beat the Stidham-led Broncos, they wouldn’t be the first team – nor even the first Patriots team – to cruise to the Super Bowl in schedule-assist mode. Heck, the 1972 Dolphins didn’t exactly face a murderer’s row. No one places an asterisk on the Lombardi Trophy or shortens the parade based on who the champions played. Immortality is just two games and one NFL-caliber opposing quarterback away.

Denver Broncos

How They Got Here

Saturday night’s 33-30 overtime defeat of the Bills felt like one of those bare-knuckles boxing matches from the days when the fights lasted 50 rounds and the combatants drank whiskey between the bells.

Both the Broncos and Bills landed a few windmill slobberknockers but also nearly punched themselves out once or twice. Each contestant appeared to be in control of the fight for a while – the Broncos at halftime, the Bills in the fourth quarter – but neither could deliver a knockout blow. By the end, both teams were staggered, and even the refs seemed a little woozy.