cmike

This is the first year in a long time Pats have a challenger in their Div. Pats come into every season year after year knowing they’ve already won their Div. First goal in football, win your Div. Do that and your chances of making to the big game are high.

CHA_CHING

"The Pats are only good cause of the AFC East!!!"

How come no one ever says this about the Colts, Chiefs or Packers????

They are the teams who go 10-6 or 11-5 with a record of 6-0 or 5-1 vs their division and then 5-5 all the way through. These are also the teams that get embarrassed in the playoffs either by losing at home, or getting blown out on the road against a real team. How often do you see the Patriots do that?

New England boasts the highest win percentage vs the NFL over the past 19 years. They have a 77% win ratio vs everyone OUTSIDE their division.

But no, they're only good cause the Bills, Dolphins and Jets are so bad.

They manage to beat the living hell out of these big overrated AFC teams that everyone hypes up against them. They beat the Chiefs twice last year; they beat the Steelers in the playoffs when they meet, they also beat the living hell out of the most overrated team in the AFC last year - the Chargers. Everyone on the other Saints forum argued with me for a week that the Chargers were some how going to go into Foxboro and upset them. LOL I tried to tell people the Chargers were a joke last year and going to get their clocks cleaned in Foxboro. Every other year it's PITSBURGH people hype up against the Pats; even though by now everyone should know Tomlin is going to get clowned by Belichick whom has been exposing him as a bad coach for years. It's amazing after the Patriots wipe the floor with these darling AFC teams everyone picks, they still repeat the BS propaganda about the AFC East.

This is actually a true statement regarding the Colts, Chiefs and Packers but they never get talked about that way. No one ever wants to bring up that these 3 teams have benefited from crappy divisions for years.

The last 3 years the Packers made the playoffs, they barely went 10-6 or 11-5. That was thanks to a 5-1 or 6-0 record vs the division and then going 5-5 the rest of the way through. Pull up Aaron Rodgers' record vs teams outside the NFC North. He has a losing record on the road career all time, and it looks worse when you remove Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota from it. Rodgers' QBR stats are through the roof vs the NFC North, but dive down into mediocre levels vs the rest of the NFL.

A true testament of how BAD the NFC North has been in Rodgers' career is the 2014 season; the year Green Bay won their division with a record of 8-7-1. They were 5-1 in the division that year, and what happened? Lost in the first round. That's what happens to teams that truly benefit from a bad division.

K.C. went 11-5 back to back years thanks to a 6-0 record and 5-1 the other year vs their division then 5-5 the rest of the way through. These were the years they lost at home in the first round.

The Colts between 2012 to 2014 went 11-5. They were 5-1 the first year and then 6-0 the other years vs the AFC South, and 5-5 vs the rest of their division. They won playoff games at home, but were completely embarrassed on the road when they got to Foxboro against those so called overrated Pats teams that are only good cause of the AFC East.

You could also go back to Peyton Manning's prime and look at how the Colts dominated a weak AFC South and then would fall flat on their faces in the playoffs. Most of their first round playoff exits back then happened at home after they had swept up an easy division title.

The whole "they're only good their division sucks" argument is actually valid with a number of teams, but people instead focus on the Patriots where it really don't make any sense at all once you start looking into them. They're still beating the crap out of teams in the playoffs and winning SBs. If the internet existed in the 80s, people would've been saying this same dumb **** about the 49ers back in their dynasty run. I can hear it now - "they get 5 or 6 free wins a year cause of the Saints, Rams and Falcons! Wait, what? They beat the Bears in the playoffs? But they're still only good cause the NFC West!"

K Major

The Pats success runs a little deeper than that.

Leadership ...(Bill Belichick/GM/owner) they know when to invest in a player or let em walk.

Preparation ... they condition hard in the off season (see all of those 4th qtr comebacks)

Never give up ...see historic Super bowl comeback over the Falcons

Thrive under the big lights ... when the game is on the line, they know how to finish.

No other team in the NFL can do what they do consistently. That is why I label them as Outliers.

Rugby Saint II

This is about right when we have Drew Brees. Since he went down the team has stepped it up in his absence. Payton has put Bridgewater in great schemes to succeed and allowed him to progress nicely. Just imagine what this team will look like when Drew comes back.

I'm feeling like Drew comes back next year because he now knows what it feels like not to play football and his body language on the sidelines was like a tiger in a cage.

jnormand

And they have the weakest divison in the NFL. The Bill's this year are the only thing that changed. And I'm still not sold on them.

SaintSproles

On cue, ESPN, PFT, Yahoo, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, NFL.com, Sporting News all have us at #2.

CBSsports has us at #3.

WillMacKenzie

Fake news. Saints are #1 and everyone knows it.

neugey