The Other Type Of Shank Column

By now we're all familiar with one type of Dan Shaugnessy column - the ones where he's second guessing a team / coach / player and / or crapping on the team's ownership. Today we get the opposite type of column, the heads version of the coin. When a team's on a winning streak, their opponents all of a sudden turn into small aluminum things!

Maybe we shouldn’t be thinking playoffs for the Patriots just yet, but their softer-than-soft schedule says otherwise

The Patriots just enjoyed their best win in five years, are over .500 after five games for the first time since the Brady era, and we are seriously talking playoffs again.

Not a moment too soon. The Red Sox thrill ride has been over for a week, and with the Bruins/Celtics launching seasons of low expectations, the Patriots have come to our emotional rescue.

Sunday’s wildly entertaining 23-20 victory over the unbeaten, Super Bowl-favorite Bills at Highmark Stadium put Gillette back on the NFL map. After two straight 4-13 campaigns and five years of front office frostiness, draft day boobery, personal vendettas, and abject incompetence — patterns and pettiness that put the franchise on the road to irrelevance — the Patriots are a team on the rise.

The prudent thing, of course, is to pump the brakes and remind everybody that the 2025 Patriots couldn’t beat the awful Raiders, losing 20-13 in Foxborough Sept. 7. Two weeks later, they committed five turnovers in a ridiculous 21-14 home loss to the Steelers.

The lords of television buried the Patriots in the anonymous 1 p.m. Sunday slot for at least 13 weekends. And they did it for a reason; the Patriots were not expected to be interesting.

But thanks to Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye, they’re suddenly a must-watch. And thanks to the easiest schedule these eyes have ever seen, the Patriots are a threat to return to the postseason and possibly even contend for first place in the AFC East.

It’s all about the schedule, people.

Seriously. Not enough has been made of the clear path the Patriots have been handed.

Welcome to the March of the Tomato Cans, 2025.

THat's right - it's not because our team's good; it's because everyone else sucks!