This is it. The bottom line. The Patriots final eight games.
Four at home. Four on the road.
As presently constituted, the Patriots will probably be favored once, as in this week against the Jets in Foxborough.
What that means is your love affair with the team and picking them without abandon could cost you a T-shirt.
That’s where Mac Jones comes in. As of today — Wed., Nov. 16, 2022 — your New England Patriots have the seventh and final playoff spot.
Crazy, isn’t it, considering where this team was after losing in embarrassing manor to the Chicago Bears on Monday night.
Things have changed with the Bills, Dolphins and Jets all ahead of the Patriots with one fewer loss. Just one.
The Bills may have blown everything with their horrific loss to the Vikings in Orchard Park, N.Y.
A path of yellow bricks was laid out for them to follow. Instead, they got cocky, particularly quarterback Josh Allen, and the game was handed … or really thrown away to the Vikings.
Mac Jones has a chance not only at some form of redemption after his abysmal summer and early season in 2022.
If he can get his act together, the Patriots could indeed be around in January, playing playoff football.
That means Mac needs to make plays and even fewer mistakes.
Stay tuned. This is going to get very interesting.
While most entries will pick the Patriots this week, the next two months will be much different I believe.
As for Week 10, my record of 8-5 doesn’t look too good, but in retrospect, only 26 entries picked more winners.
That’s how tough the week was. In fact, I had the Vikings believing Allen wouldn’t play. Yup, I got lucky.
Anyway, because the Patriots were off, the L.A. Chargers point total was used as the first tiebreaker (my bad!). The Chargers scored only 16 points.
All of the winners were within four points of that total. We also used the second tiebreaker, amount of correct selections, with five winning entries have 10 or more wins.
Get ready for the rest of the season. It won’t get any easier based on what’s happened so far.
Week 10 winners
Maura Moore of Newbury
Bill Griffith of Newburyport
Marie Stanley of Danvers
Terri Barnes of Danvers
Betty Tremblay of Salem
Shirley Crovetti of Amesbury
Gizza Pearson Beverly
Jeanne Crovetti of Amesbury
Stephen Schissel of Amesbury
Bobby Tramondozzi of Peabody