New England Patriots get help for AFC Wild Card race

The New England Patriots lost last Thursday to the Buffalo Bills. However, they got some other help on Sunday in the heated AFC Wild Card race.  It doesn’t appear that the team is going to catch the Bills in the division, so we can forget about that.

However, the Jets and Dolphins are two other teams who are currently battling for AFC playoff seeding this year.  Both New York and Miami played on Sunday.  The Jets played the Vikings and the Dolphins played the 49ers.  Obviously, Patriots’ fans should have been rooking for Minnesota and San Francisco to win.

Fortunately, they did, so the Patriots didn’t lose another game off the pace in the AFC.  Right now, the Jets are still the seventh and final seed in the playoff race.  They’re 7-5 after their loss to the Vikings.  The Mike White story is fun, but he is not someone you’d want to be playing if you’re going for a playoff berth.

There are two 6-6 teams in the AFC.  New England is the eighth seed and the Los Angeles Chargers are the ninth seed.  To me, the Patriots should not have to worry about the Chargers.  They are incredibly banged up and suffer from abysmal coaching.

The important thing here is that New England owns a tiebreaker over the Jets, so if they can get to the same record as New York, they’d be ahead of them.  The Dolphins are also another team to keep in mind.  Their loss versus the 49ers was a big one.

Monday Night Football is when New England plays next.  They face the Arizona Cardinals and should be able to notch a win there.  Then, they face the Las Vegas Raiders.  To me, Bill Belichick should be able to get two more wins here to bring his team to 8-6.

The Jets’ next two games are against the Bills and the Lions.  They already beat the Bills once but I do not anticipate that happening again.  The Lions are also a fun team who gave the Bills some fits.  Right now, there does appear to be an opening for New England to climb back into the playoff race.