2014 Season Moot?

[Kontradiction]

I'm not sure I agree @mgteich. The Patriots should improve with the return of Kelly, Wilfork, Mayo, Vollmer and hopefully, a healthy Gronkowski. The team suffered negligible personnel losses whilst adding an elite and decent Defensive Back.

The NFL is about creating match-ups. New England's defensive strength now appears to be its secondary. Competing against a pass first team, this looks to be a good match-up.

I believe New England and Denver have both improved. I don't happen to believe either team has a clear advantage over the other. In my opinion, they are 1A to 1AA in the AFC. Whether or not that's enough to get past the defensive juggernauts in the NFC is yet to be determined.

Kelly and Wilfork may not improve them. Wilfork is a 300+ pound man who even the team wasn't sure he could come back at his normal level, given incentive-laden contract they offered him. Both are also on the wrong side of 30. Vollmer himself has also been consistently injured but the right edge of OL wasn't the issue last year. It was the interior OL, so him being back should, at the very least, keep things around the same if not improve it. Looking forward to seeing Mayo and Gronk back, but it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for Gronk to suffer a "down" season (for his standards) coming off of an ACL tear in which he was hit so hard that he also suffered a concussion. A lot of skill position players coming back from an ACL injury typically have down years the following season. Hopefully Gronk can have an A.P.-esque return, but that's not the norm.