First, the good news: The Patriots are tied for first place in the AFC East.
Now, the bad: The Patriots are tied for last place in the AFC East.
You get the idea. All four teams in the division have 3-3 records, and that means division games are all the more important. That’s right, even a Patriots-Jets game can find a way to mean more to each team and fan base than it usually does.
The Pats are just four total points away from a perfect 6-0 record, but they can’t go back and change one or two plays now.
“Yeah, it’s a 10-game schedule now,” Bill Belichick said. “There’s nothing anybody can do about any of the games that have happened, us or any of our opponents or anybody else. It’s just about going forward. We have to try to do a good job this week and we’ll worry about next week next week.”
The Patriots most likely frown on being tied with the rest of their relatively weak division. The Jets probably didn’t think a 3-3 record would give them a chance to pass New England in Week 7, but Rex Ryan hopes to take full advantage.
“One of your objectives every year is to win your division and obviously New England has had a stranglehold on this division for several years,” Ryan said. “The three years I’ve been the head coach, obviously they’ve won our division, and to be quite honest, pretty handily. So they’re the ones to beat. It goes through New England without question.”
It’ll go through New England on Sunday. The Patriots lead the NFL in yards per game with a whopping 445. But those yards aren’t translating into points the way they should be. While New England leads the league in red zone appearances, it only scores touchdowns on 55-percent of them, 10 percentage points less than last season. The Pats were just 1-for-6 against Seattle.
“I think we’ve done a good job moving the ball this year, it’s really just a matter of us getting the ball in the end zone and scoring points,” Tom Brady said.
