New England Patriots’ playoff chances hanging by a thread
With another loss on the season, the Patriots fall to 7-8 and are currently barely grasping onto playoff chances for the 2022 season. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that most fans have all but thrown the towel in on the season for New England.
Their fourth loss in five games was something I unfortunately expected to happen. Their schedule was painfully easy during the first half of the season, but it got incredibly harder during the second half, and the results say as much.
They did win their first game after the bye week against the New York Jets, but they have proven over recent weeks to not be a good team. Their most recent slide started against the Minnesota Vikings, continued against the Buffalo Bills. They did notch a win against the Arizona Cardinals, but fell in heartbreaking fashion to the Las Vegas Raiders, and were unsuccessful mounting a 22 point comeback against the Cincinnati Bengals.
According to FiveThirtyEight, the Patriots currently have an 11% chance at making the postseason. Their fellow 7-8 divisional opponent, the Jets, have a slightly less chance to make the playoffs in 2022 at 9%.
The table on their website also has a column titled “1-week change” which likely means how much their playoff hopes changed from last week to this week. The Patriots’ 1-week change number is -9, so the team had a 20% chance at the postseason before they fell to the Bengals.
The Dolphins are all but guaranteed a playoff spot, as they have an 81% chance to make the postseason, and the Buffalo Bills have already clinched a spot. Funnily enough, Five ThirtyEight gives the Patriots a less than 0.1% chance to make the Super Bowl.
With two games left in the 2022 campaign, the Patriots play the Dolphins and the Bills. I think it’s likely that they drop both of those, which would bring them to a depressing 7-10 finish. That record wouldn’t be high enough to get a high first round draft pick, and obviously would not be good enough to make the postseason.