Heading into Sunday’s slate of NFL games, there was a sliver of hope that a late run to finish 7-10 by Bill Belichick’s team might mean a shot at playing in January, given that the New England Patriots weren’t quite mathematically eliminated.
Unfortunately, on Sunday, that door closed, and they’re now officially out of the running.
The Bengals’ 34-14 win at home over the Colts ended any miracle chance New England might have had to get into the postseason. Now, instead, the club will spend these final four games playing the role of spoiler against three teams still in playoff contention.
Obviously, the key one is coming up Sunday in Foxboro as Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs come into Gillette Stadium fresh off a tough loss to Buffalo yesterday. That game ended following a bizarre sequence of events where Chiefs receiver Kadarius Toney somehow lined up well offsides on what might have been the play of the season, had it stood.
Trailing 20-17 with 1:25 left to go in the game while facing a 2nd-and-10 from the Bills’ 49-yard line, Mahomes found Travis Kelce on a route near the right sideline, with Kelce hauling it in for what would have certainly been at least a first down as he took off upfield. However, as Buffalo’s defense collapsed down and came in to tackle him, Kelce threw the ball back laterally across the field to Toney, who by himself on the other side of the field.
Toney caught the ball and was off to the races, taking it into the end zone as everyone in GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, including Taylor Swift (who was present for this one) went wild for what was potentially a game-winning play.
The bad news is, there was a flag sitting back at the line of scrimmage. That quieted everyone for a moment after replays revealed that Toney lined up well offsides before the snap, with his front foot clearly lined up ahead of the football in the neutral zone.
That nullified the play, and Mahomes threw incomplete on three straight plays, turning the ball back over to Buffalo for the win.
As a result, Kansas City now heads into this one with quite a chip on their shoulder, which should certainly make this match-up interesting.
For the Patriots, this should definitely be a good match-up, with players still playing hard despite what’s clearly been a frustrating season. Some players expressed support for Belichick following Thursday night’s win over the Steelers, and Belichick said on Monday during his appearance The Greg Hill Show that the respect goes both ways given how hard they’re continuing to play at this point in the year.
“It goes both ways. I have a lot of respect for what the team has done,” said Belichick. “They come in everyday and prepare, work hard. We’ve lost some close games, and we won one Thursday night, which was great. So hopefully, we can stay on that track and keep finding ways to win those close games.”
The rest of the 2023 Patriots schedule will see the club play the Chiefs at 1pm ET this Sunday, followed by the Broncos in a nationally televised game on Christmas Eve. They’ll then make a trip to Buffalo for another 1pm ET game the following week, with the team closing out the year at home against the Jets. Kickoff times for those Week 18 games have yet to be announced.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
