The New England Patriots are back in the Super Bowl with Drake Maye, Mike Vrabel, and a complete team effort on defense and special teams, which led them past the Denver Broncos to get to the 12th Super Bowl in franchise history.
The vast majority of those, of course, were with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick leading the way, so this group is different.
Did the Patriots Have an Easy Schedule?
That’s not stopping the rest of the world from reacting to New England’s latest Super Bowl berth, citing a cakewalk schedule to the biggest game.
how the hell did the patriots get the easiest regular season schedule ever then luck into the easiest playoff schedule ever
— Anthony (@omgitsbirdman) January 25, 2026
When the Patriots entered the playoffs as the No. 2 seed in the AFC, one of the conversations surrounding their legitimacy was whether or not they had an easy schedule to make their way into the playoffs and throughout their playoff run.
During the regular season, the Patriots beat as many teams with a winning record as the Las Vegas Raiders, who, inexplicably, beat New England during the regular season.
That led some to believe the Patriots could have a quick exit from the postseason because they had not been battle-tested and had not beaten enough high-caliber teams.
Through the postseason run, some of those conversations persisted. Their first postseason win was against an injury-riddled Los Angeles Chargers team, but the Patriots were dominant on defense and advanced to the divisional round.
Watching the Patriots get back to a Super Bowl after facing the single easiest schedule in NFL history, playoff Justin Herbert, C.J. Stroud (blind), and a backup QB pic.twitter.com/MU6K1MuEjj
— NFL Memes (@NFLMemes) January 25, 2026
For their other two games on the way to the big dance, the Patriots faced C.J. Stroud, who was clearly rattled by the Patriots’ defense and the conditions in Foxborough.
They advanced to face the Denver Broncos on the road, but the Broncos lost Bo Nix to a broken ankle in waning moments of the divisional-round overtime win against the Bills. Consequently, the Patriots faced Jarrett Stidham, who’d last thrown anything other than a preseason pass in 2023.
While it’s true the quarterbacks and teams they faced were not the most daunting on the schedule, that’s not the Patriots’ fault. Josh Allen and the Bills had a chance to beat the Broncos and did not.
Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes did not even make the playoffs.
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It’s also true that, as Robert Griffin III pointed out, the group of defenses the Patriots faced was one of the stingiest trios they could have encountered en route to the Super Bowl.
According to PFSN’s Defensive Impact, the Broncos fielded the best defense in all of football. That was seen on the field in Sunday’s game before the conditions became more harsh. Denver’s defense was great all season and nearly carried them past the Patriots and into the Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, the Chargers were eighth in that metric, and the Texans were second. That means that New England’s two most recent victories have come against the top two defenses in all of football.
Ultimately, history will not rewrite anything when the Patriots play in the Super Bowl on Feb. 8. Perhaps they had some luck break their way in the regular season with their schedule, but their postseason road was as difficult as any for their offense to navigate.
To their credit, they did, and they’ll be playing on Super Bowl Sunday in two weeks as a result.
