New England Patriots: Full 2019 NFL schedule released

The New England Patriots’ entire 2019 NFL schedule has been released, and it features five juicy primetime matchups and plenty of intrigue.

At long last, we finally know the full 2019 schedule for the New England Patriots and their quest to repeat as Super Bowl champions.

The goal at the end of this upcoming season is the same as it is for the other 31 teams in the NFL, but with one major caveat. While every professional football team aspires to claim a Lombardi Trophy in February as the ultimate victory, not every team can aspire to capture their seventh franchise Lombardi Trophy.

Indeed, seven really is the magic number. When the Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl 53, they tied the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most Super Bowl championships in NFL history. Each franchise now has six to their name; whoever wins a seventh would break that tie and stand alone atop the NFL’s Mount Olympus.

The two teams will get a crack right from the get-go at winning No. 7 when they face each other in Week 1. The Patriots will host the Steelers at Foxborough on Sunday Night Football… and you’d better believe the NFL schedule-makers knew what they were doing when they pitted these two foes against each other to start the season.

New England will have a pregame ceremony to unveil their sixth Super Bowl banner at Gillette Stadium, and that ceremony is sure to add some extra spice to the ensuing game. How much must Pittsburgh hate that their players, coaches, staffers, and fans will have to stomach watching the Patriots celebrate a new record that Steeler Nation used to hold entirely alone?

After Week 1, the Patriots will spend three straight weeks battling their division foes. Games against the Dolphins (away), Jets (home), and Bills (away) in Weeks 2-4 will provide an early measuring stick for whether the rest of the AFC East has managed to close the gap on divisional bully New England at all.

The Patriots face two NFC East teams back-to-back in Weeks 5 and 6 as they take on the Washington Redskins (away) and the New York Giants (home). Curiously, the game against New York is slated for Thursday Night Football, despite the fact that the Giants have openly admitted to a franchise rebuild… and not to mention that they also shipped away their star player (Odell Beckham Jr.) to Cleveland over the offseason.

New England follows that primetime matchup with another game at night under the bright lights – this one on the road against the new-look New York Jets. That game, coming in Week 7, is the Patriots’ only contest televised on Monday Night Football this season.

The schedule really begins to heat up in Week 8 when the Patriots host the aforementioned Beckham and the Cleveland Browns, an offseason darkhorse contender for AFC bragging rights and Super Bowl contention. A year ago it would have been ludicrous to suggest the Browns could challenge the Patriots atop the conference, but this game should live up to its preseason billing given all the new star-power assembled on the Browns’ roster.

New England then travels to Baltimore to face the Ravens in Week 9. This matchup is the Patriots’ fourth primetime game this season, and the second of three that will air on Sunday Night Football. It also immediately precedes their bye in Week 10.

The Patriots return to action in Weeks 11 and 12 against the other two NFC East teams they’re scheduled to face this year: the Philadelphia Eagles (away) and the Dallas Cowboys (home). The Eagles game, of course, represents a rematch of Super Bowl 52, and the Cowboys game represents what many NFL fans would describe as arguably a clash between the most hated teams in the league.

New England will play its final primetime game in Week 13 on the road against the Houston Texans, an ascendant team that has played the Pats close the last two years under former Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien. That game will be televised on NBC’s Sunday Night Football and called by Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth.

In another interesting schedule quirk, the Patriots then face the Kansas City Chiefs at home in a rematch of last season’s AFC title game. Many pundits (this one included) thought this game would surely be televised in primetime, but it’s currently scheduled to occur in a 4:25 pm EST timeslot.

Week 15 might be a forgettable affair compared to Patriots/Chiefs, as New England travels to Cincinnati to take on the moribund Bengals. They then wrap up their season with a two-game divisional homestand against the Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins.

So now that we know the full slate of games and their order this year, what do you think the New England Patriots’ 2019 regular season record will be? Which games are the hardest, and which games are the easiest? Most importantly: which games are you looking forward to the most?

Let us know in the comments section below!