FOXBORO — The Patriots carried out their last regular-season apply Friday.
On Saturday, they are going to maintain their last conferences.
On Sunday, they may play their last sport.
If the Patriots meet their demise, they are going to shut a second straight season in Buffalo, the place the Bills demolished their protection in final 12 months’s playoffs and will put an offensive-challenged marketing campaign out of its distress this weekend. Either approach, they count on the top or extension of their season to be loud.
“This is going to be an intense environment,” Pats linebackers coach Jerod Mayo stated Friday. “I always say going down to Buffalo is like playing in college, in an SEC stadium. So, it’s definitely going to be tough.”
Mayo reiterated there is no such thing as a time left for motivational speeches to fight an emotionally charged Bills crew. There’s no want. Two situations will suffice.
“You win and you’re in,” Mayo stated, referring to the playoffs.
Or:
“If you lose, you get a big plastic bag,” he added. “Big trash bag (for locker clean-out).”
But whether or not the Patriots snag a playoff berth or a trash bag, the ink on the story of their season already appears dry. The worst offense (and maybe particular groups) of the Bill Belichick period thwarted the Pats’ greatest laid plans in 2022 and will once more within the first month of 2023. The protection scored a franchise-record seven touchdowns and ranks within the league’s high 5 by factors allowed, yards allowed per play and Football Outsiders’ opponent-and-situation-adjusted metric DVOA.
The Patriots’ season has maybe been greatest captured by this stat: security Kyle Dugger has three touchdowns this 12 months, and so do Hunter Henry, DeVante Parker and Jonnu Smith — mixed.
“It didn’t really go the way we wanted to go,” Patriots security Jabrill Peppers stated Friday of the season. “But at the end of the day, you control your own destiny, and that’s all you can ask for.”
Peppers would know. Before this 12 months, his sixth within the NFL, he hadn’t performed a December regular-season sport with playoff implications. Peppers described the Patriots’ final 4 video games as having a playoff really feel, and particularly final weekend’s win over Miami.
But solely by the grace of Dolphins defeats, which reached 5 straight final Sunday, have the Pats’ postseason hopes stayed alive. Even if the Patriots lose Sunday, a sixth straight Miami loss may assist clinch a playoff berth for the Patriots, offered the Titans and Steelers lose, too.
Sunday’s opponent and atmosphere would offer the Patriots with a worthy playoff preview. Highmark Stadium figures to pulsate with the kind of vitality that may be born solely a transformative expertise. Say, a brush with demise.
Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest first introduced the Bills group to its knees in prayer Monday and Tuesday, however his ongoing restoration in a Cincinnati hospital now has Buffalo rising in reduction and pleasure. Bills gamers and coaches have practiced every of the previous two days and spoken in regards to the immense reduction Hamlin’s progress has introduced them. They can give attention to soccer now and ending the 12 months, enjoying within the title of their brother.
Are the Patriots frightened in regards to the emotional enhance that may deliver, each for the crew and its followers on Sunday?
“At the end of the day, our job is to silence the crowd,” Mayo stated.
But naturally, the Patriots have been pondering of Hamlin, too. For some time, Hamlin’s restoration stored them distracted from the straightforward truth their might meet its finish in Buffalo. And the bigger reality that 12 months later, inside the identical stadium with decrease expectations and a path of poor offensive selections and performances behind them, they’re once more asking themselves to play their greatest sport of the season.
But after a 47-17 embarrassment final 12 months, what’s the worst that would occur?
“Expect it to be an emotional scene,” Belichick stated. “In the end we’re going there to play our best football game. So, I think everybody understands there’s the balance and there’s multiple things going on here.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com