After a Sunday that worked in their playoff favor, the Patriots are on a two-game West Coast road trip where they could do themselves a solid and return home next Friday with a ... wait for it ... winning record! Something we haven’t seen in these parts since the end of September.
And while they’ll first have their hands full with likely ROTY Justin Herbert and the Chargers Sunday, this is a winnable Left Coast swing; Five days, two teams one fancy new stadium. They don’t 100 percent control their own destiny, but should they TCOB the rest of the way it’s hard to imagine they don’t play football and not just golf or PS5 past Jan. 3.
Best part of the how this Sunday lines up is four of the six games where we have rooting interest come at 1 p.m., and the other two are prime time Monday and Tuesday. This sets you up, the Pats diehard, to pull out all the tricks, hexes and voodoo that you do at 1 p.m., settle in for Pats/Bolts at 4 p.m., rest-rehydrate-replenish, then get back to work Monday and Tuesday night.
Holy holiday football weekend, Batman! We can do this! (Bane voice) Let the games begin!
BROWNS @ TITANS - 1 p.m.
The Browns at 8-3 (do not adjust your screen) are a solid football team, a sentence you once could chalk up to “Things you’d only say in 2020”, but it’s true. They’re playing good football on both sides, inching closer week by week to Wild Card inevitability. But their schedule is far from SAWFT the rest of the way (Ravens, @ NYG, @ NYJ and home vs Pitt). If AJB, King Henry and Tannos the Titan, playing for the AFC South title themselves, can flex their muscles and knock the Brownies down a peg maybe this will be the beginning of Cleveland reverting to their old ways. Do your old pals a solid would ya, Coach Vrabes? Let’s TITAN UP!
BENGALS @ DOLPHINS - 1 p.m.
Who Dey? Who Dey? Who Dey say gonna beat them Fins? Probably not this version of the Queen City Kitties, who travel to South Florida to take on a Miami team currently sitting Wild Card ready at 7-4. Coach Brian Flores said nobody on Miami is 100 percent, which against a better team would give us hope for ringing the Upset Alert siren. But this is Brandon Allen and the Bengals taking on Ryan Fitzpatrick, who once QB’d for Cincy, among about 27 teams. Crazier things have happened, so we’ll hope for a different kind of Miami Miracle here. GO BENGALS!
RAIDERS @ JETS - 1 p.m.
The Raiders are a puzzle, keeping pace with the Chiefs one week, then getting their doors blown off in the ATL the next. They’re currently 6-5, one of the teams just outside the playoff picture the Pats have a legit shot of passing. Plus New England has the tiebreaker over Gruden’s Gridiron Grinders. That said, hoping the Jets, who sit winless and pole position in the Trevor Lawrence Sweepstakes, help you out is like hoping the family dog doesn’t eat a ribeye steak you leave out on the counter. But they are the Jets, and doing Jets things like winning to screw up their shot at a savior, isn’t a total stretch. Can’t believe I’m typing this but GO JETS?
COLTS @ TEXANS - 1 p.m.
The Colts are 7-4 and have an interesting home stretch of a schedule, with two games against a Texans team that’s played pretty well of late, but just lost two of their better players to PED suspensions in Will Fuller and Bradley Roby. Houston took it to the Pats a few Sundays back, so a favor returned in the form of beating the Colts would be nice. Plus, who doesn’t love seeing a frustrated Philip Rivers? Sundays that see him upset are like an advent calendar that just keeps on giving. Get it done, DeShaun. GO TEXANS
BILS @ 49ers - Mon 8:15 p.m.
The Bills want that AFC East crown badly. And they’re in the driver’s seat. Their schedule, however, presents challenges aplenty (vs Steelers, @ Broncos, @ Pats and vs Miami). So if they’re to begin their late season slide what better time than against a 49ers squad fighting for their own postseason play, and in Arizona no less, where they’re to play out the rest of their season due to contact sport restriction in Santa Clara county. It’s all very confusing, but in the swirl of COVID rescheduling and relocation, one thing is clear; the Bills will have to earn their first AFC East since the Clinton Era the hard way, so GO NINERS!
COWBOYS @ RAVENS - Tues, 8 p.m.
Baltimore, who only need to play a game on a Friday night by year’s end to have literally played a game every night of the week in calendar year 2020, should be back to full strength following their COVID outbreak. They’re coming off a three-game losing streak and face a Cowboys squad who just got destroyed like a cream pie dropped out of a ten story window on Thanksgiving by TWFT. This should be about as close as Paris to Peabody, but maybe a twelve day layoff will help Dallas mount a semi-pro effort. Probably not. At. Bright side? We have
