The New England Patriots just won Super Bowl 50
By Josh Hill
It’s been a whirlwind of a season for the New England Patriots, and football fans who love juicy narratives have to appreciate what is going on in Foxboro. Who can blame them either – there is Sorkin-level storytelling going on in New England right now. The Patriots are one game away from returning to the Super Bowl and officially driving Roger Goodell out of his mind.
While technically a game away from the Super Bowl, the Patriots have actually already won — it just hasn’t been made official yet.
When we were hearing all about Deflategate and the ramifications it would have on the season, no one could truly envision what we are seeing now. Tom Brady was suspended for four games at one point and it looked like the NFL was going to get away with thumbing its nose at the league’s latest dynasty.
But while that was all happening, a fire was just starting to grow in the belly of the Patriots. That fire is now a raging inferno ready to engulf everything. New England rolled past the Chiefs in the Divisional Round — attracting naysayers in the process — and are in a prime position to see their unholy prophecy through to it’s bloody conclusion.
Haters will try to argue that their win against the Chiefs wasn’t convincing. Unfortunately for those people, you don’t need to be convincing in the postseason — you just need to win, get hot and have garbage teams as future opponents.
Who Will Stop Them?
You can get all red in the face and drool on yourself with rage over the idea of handing the Patriots the Super Bowl before they even play in the AFC Championship game — but who is going to stop them? The two options right now are the broken Steelers and the limp Broncos. Neither team is exciting and neither will outlast the Patriots in the title game.
The Steelers?
If the Steelers get there, the Patriots would be playing a team without a running game and with a receiver who is currently out with a concussion. Someone get the garlic necklace and wooden stake to slay that blood sucker, how else will the Patriots defend against that attack?
Pittsburgh’s defense is okay and could be a wild card, but it let A.J. McCarron claim victory last week — so there’s that. Plus, if you breathe on Ben Roethlisberger the right way, his shoulder and leg will simultaneously break. Then it’s the Landry Jones Show.
Good luck with that one, Pittsburgh. You’re going to need it if you start the Landry Jones Experience against the Patriots in a title game.
The Broncos?
Peyton Manning will be starting his first game in five weeks on Sunday against the Steelers. He’s a million years old and probably forgets where he is sometimes. There’s a lot of forehead going on, which houses a lot of football IQ — but how healthy is his arm? He has officially hit the wall in his career, which was painfully clear when he was benched for Brock Osweiler earlier in the season (after which we spent a good few weeks overselling the latter’s talents).
Which brings the next point: Brock Osweiler is Denver’s backup. Sure, he led the Broncos to a key victory against the Patriots, which froze New England out of the No. 1 seed. But look at his body of work since then — I’ll give you time to be wholly unimpressed enough to believe that a senior citizen is a better option at quarterback.
Like Pittsburgh, the Broncos defense is a scary factor to account for and it bested Tom Brady once already this season. That’s reason to believe that the game might be winnable for Denver, but Manning’s reliability isn’t what it once was. This isn’t 2014 anymore; a matchup in 2016 has all the makings of being Brady’s final triumph over Manning in what will likely be their final meeting.
But the NFC has talent …
It does, but enough to beat the Patriots after they’ve smelled the blood in the water? This isn’t about a team being better than the Patriots, it’s about someone stopping New England from throwing it in Roger Goodell’s face and hoisting the Lombardi Trophy after Super Bowl 50. Watching Goodell have to fake smile his way through handing Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady a fully inflated trophy is like the ending to a cruel dream for the commissioner.
The biggest threat in the NFC to the Patriots are the Cardinals. Arizona has the defense to beat Brady and the offense to manage the game long enough to win a squeaker of a Super Bowl.
Weird things tend to happen in the postseason, and we very well could get a game where one thing goes wrong for the Cardinals and someone like Pete Carroll or Cam Newton ends up smiling at the end of the day. If we’re talking Brady-Manning narratives, how perfect is the Patriots beating the Seahawks for a second straight year but this time telling everyone the balls weren’t deflated?
Then again, maybe a weird thing happens to the Patriots and they end up on the wrong side of fate. Like we saw with Jeremy Maclin and the Chiefs, all it takes is one injury to change your fortune. New England has not one, but three major cogs of their receiving game who missed at least one game this season due to injury. Rob Gronkowski is one low hit away from being taken out and Julian Edelman broke his foot not that long ago. Let’s not forget that Danny Amendola is the new Wes Welker as far as concussions are concerned — so let’s not pretend the Patriots are wrapped in an iron cast.
That being said, New England is Bruce the Shark in Jaws — the Pats have already tasted blood in the water and the rest of the Super Bowl contenders need a bigger boat.