The who and where parts of the 2023 Patriots schedule have been known for months, but Thursday night New England like the rest of the NFL finally learned the dates and details of the 17-game slate of fall action.
NFL schedule release day has strangely become, like Ron Burgundy, kind of a big deal. Leaks and teases fill out the 48 hours or so leading up to the big announcement on NFL Network. Teams put lots of time, effort, thought and money into creative ways to announce their games – still months away – on social media. It truly is a curious case of marketing magic, a nothing-burger treated like filet mignon.
Now, though, with final dates and times of the Patriots’ games, we can finally but prematurely overanalyze games that are, at the earliest, still four months away.
It’s a beautiful, mind-boggling exercise this whole damn pre-Mother’s Day NFL schedule release experience.
Love it. Hate it. Do what you will with it.
But you can’t avoid it or ignore it.
So here are 13 mid-May thoughts on the 2023 Patriots’ schedule!
1 – Ready or not…: Bill Belichick’s team will not be able to ease into action this fall. The first four games – Eagles and Dolphins at Gillette followed by trips to the Jets and Cowboys – are as challenging a stretch as New England will face all year. It kicks off with the defending NFC champs, one of the most talented all-around rosters in the NFL. Forget that “September is an extension of the preseason” crap, this team better be ready to compete and play at a relatively high level in September or it might find itself in a hole that it can’t dig its way out of.
2 – Tom’s time: New England announced that it has invited Tom Brady back to Foxborough to honor the now-retired GOAT QB on and around the late Sunday afternoon opener against Philly. That should be an interesting and energetic environment at Gillette for everyone involved. Belichick will see Brady in the house prior to the kickoff of a very critical and uncertain season. Mac Jones will have Brady looking over his proverbial shoulder as he begins a make-or-break third NFL effort. The fans will be torn in so many direction emotionally, seeing the connection to past greatness as they deal with a rather uncertain present.
3 – D up!: In recent years the Patriots’ defense has been the more consistent, effective part of the team. But the group has also wilted at times late in the year and failed to measure up to high-end competition. New England’s defense, led by Matt Judon on the field and Steve Belichick/Jerod Mayo on the sideline, faces four straight significant challenges right out of the gate. Philly, Miami, New York and Dallas will test the Patriots defense and give us an idea if that unit is ready to be the strength of the team over the long haul.
4 – Full coverage: Maybe the aspect of the Patriots that will be most challenged and tested early in the season is the secondary. With Devin McCourty retired and the potential for top pick Christian Gonzalez and sophomore Jack Jones to serve as the top cornerbacks in New England, the coverage will get tested by elite receivers early and often. Philly has A.J.
Brown and DeVonta Smith. The Dolphins field the dynamic duo of Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. The Jets have Garrett Wilson. Dallas sends CeeDee Lamb and Brandin Cooks out on every snap. It’s going to be trial by aerial fire for the new-look, much-to-prove Patriots’ secondary.
5 – Start to finish: As much as the first month will be huge, the final stretch of the season certainly has the potential to be equally as challenging for the defense and the New England team as a whole. While a Christmas Eve trip to Denver is tough to gauge in Russell Wilson’s second season in the Rocky Mountains, dealing with the Super Bowl-Champion Chiefs, visiting Buffalo and hosting Aaron Rodgers to close out the year is anything but coasting to the finish.
6 – Make midseason hay: If New England is going to pile up wins during any stretch of the schedule, it’s probably from early November to early December. Hosting the Commanders, traveling to Germany to face Indy, visiting the Giants after the bye, hosting the Chargers and visiting Pittsburgh on Thursday night is a five-game stretch of rather winnable games from Nov.
5-Dec.7. If there is going to be a season-solidifying stretch that’s probably got to be it.
7 – QB gauntlet: There are obviously lots of good quarterbacks in the AFC and the AFC East. But facing guys like Josh Allen, Rodgers, Hurts, Dak Prescott, Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes and others, means New England will be charged with stopping high-end QBs more often than not in 2023. While anything can change, there aren’t a lot of overmatched fill-in passers on the schedule at this point. Even guys like Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo and Kenny Pickett aren’t exactly pushovers.
8 – Home/road splits: As Belichick likes to say, for every home game there is a road game. (Though that’s not really true anymore with an odd number of games.) Through the first eight games, New England has four at home and four on the road. Things are a little less perfect over the second half of the season thanks to the trip to Germany for a “home” game against the Colts in Week 10. The Patriots will be away from Gillette Stadium for five of the final eight games. Weather will also be a weekly consideration late in the season with three games in Foxborough and trips to New York, Pittsburgh, Denver and Buffalo all on the docket after Thanksgiving.
9 – Certified prime?: On the surface the fact that the Patriots have four prime time games scheduled would seem to indicate that the NFL and TV networks view New England as a relatively appealing team. But three of those games come in a three-game stretch in December which means they are very much options for flexible scheduling if the Patriots simply aren’t very good at that point. (The same could be true for Denver in terms of the Christmas Eve Sunday night game.)
10 – ‘Twas the night before Christmas: Sunday Night Football in Denver on Christmas Eve. Talk about finding coal in your stocking seven-plus months early! Not cool NFL, not cool.
11 – Revenge tour: Former Patriots CB J.C. Jackson came right out and said that he sees his return to Gillette Stadium as member of the Chargers as a “revenge” game and that he’s looking forward to picking off Jones. There are plenty of interesting potential “revenge” motivations on the schedule. Though he’s soft spoken, Jakobi Meyers may have a little extra motivation against New England in Week 6. JuJu Smith-Schuster probably has Dec. 18 circled on his calendar with a special TikTok-worthy performance ready for his former K.C. squad. Mike Gesicki gets to show the Dolphins what he’s made of in Week 2. Damien Harris seems to really like life in Buffalo, facing his former teammates twice. Personnel changes a lot in the NFL creating personal motivations in weekly games. The Patriots schedule is no different, even if Kyle Van Noy isn't at the center of the discussion.
12 – Finale thoughts: The season finale against Rodgers’ Jets certainly has the possibility of being interesting. Maybe both teams are vying for the playoffs. Maybe New England is looking to play spoiler. Maybe it’s just a Border War rivalry game. It’s hard to imagine there not being something for at least one of the two teams to play for to ignite the finale on the first weekend in January.
13 – W/L: Everyone hates it. Everyone does it, even if we all know it’s meaningless and pretty stupid. But when the schedule is released it’s almost impossible to not quickly run through all 17 games assigning a gut-reaction W or L to each one! So here goes. L, L, L, L, W, W, L, L, W, W, W, L, L, L, W, L, W. There you have it, seven Ws and 10 Ls. Guess the Patriots are going to have a 7-10 record. You read it here – and only here! – first.