After a big-time win over the Chargers on Sunday night, the Patriots are now heading into the divisional round of the AFC playoffs as the No. 2 seed. Besides shocking the entire league by having a winning record and making the playoffs, their win over a team like the Chargers might have been even more surprising for all those outside New England.
They are set to go into next week's games, avoiding playing the Bills, who barely beat the Jaguars earlier in the day, and now know they will either face the Steelers or the Texans, who play on Monday night.
That means the Bills will travel to Denver to play the No. 1 seed Broncos, which is never an easy place to play, and the Patriots will welcome a team they lost to earlier in the year or an AFC South opponent with an incredibly dominant defense for most of the season.
For Patriots fans, it's hard to decide which might be the better choice.
The Patriots now know the two teams they could face next week
Avoiding the Bills is certainly a highlight of this weekend's results, as many fans did not want to play Buffalo for the third time in one year, especially after how the last game turned out.
Instead, they could have a rematch with the Steelers, who managed to do just enough to beat the Patriots 21-14 despite a beyond mediocre day from Aaron Rodgers. It was sloppy football and poor ball security that sealed the game in Pittsburgh's favor, and fortunately, the Patriots have come a long way since then.
That might be the ideal matchup, and seeking revenge could be high on Patriots' fans' list. But the idea of beating a team with a well-respected defense sounds intriguing, too, especially since analysts continue to doubt how legitimate New England is.
It would probably be the tougher matchup of the two teams, so that's certainly something to consider, but it also depends on how they play on Monday night. Maybe the lights will be too bright for the young Texans' team, or maybe the defense won't play as freakishly dominant as it has all season.
Perhaps the Steelers come alive with a future Hall of Fame performance by Aaron Rodgers, making them the scarier team to host; who knows?
No matter what, there is something to be celebrated, and that is the Patriots making it past the first round in the playoffs for the first time since the 2018 season, as they were whooped by the Bills in 2021 and lost in the Wild Card round to the Titans in 2019.