You can't control who you play, so it's not fair to dock a team for their schedule. But I'm hearing the Falcons be dismissed in Super Bowl LI because of "Bill Belihick having two weeks to prepare" and so forth, and I'm not buying. There's nothing special about New England's defense, and it definitely hasn't faced an offense anything close to Atlanta's.
Seriously: anything close.
The Falcons finished the season with the NFL's 2nd-ranked offense (in yards; No. 1 in points). New England played 16 regular-season games facing only three top-12 offenses; it played three times as many games (9), more than half its schedule, against bottom-10 groups (offenses ranked 24th or worse). Two of the three top-12 offenses (Arizona and Seattle) each scored 3 TDs and averaged 26 points. The third, Pittsburgh, didn't have Ben Roethlisberger.
In the playoffs, the Patriots faced one of those bottom-10 offenses again (Houston) and then handled Pittsburgh pretty easily. But Roethlisberger's road problems are well-documented, plus the Steelers lost LeVeon Bell early on (and had some bad drops).
Perhaps I'm not giving enough credit to New England's defense. We'll see. Bottom line, though, here's what they faced all season long. Nothing close to Atlanta in this group.
| PATRIOTS OPPONENTS, 2016 | |
|---|---|
| Team | Off Rk |
| at Ariz | 9th |
| Mia | 24th |
| Hou | 29th |
| Buf | 16th |
| at Cle | 30th |
| Cin | 14th |
| at Pitt | 7th |
| at Buf | 16th |
| Sea | 12th |
| at SF | 31st |
| at NYJ | 26th |
| LA | 32nd |
| Balt | 17th |
| at Den | 27th |
| NYJ | 26th |
| at Mia | 24th |
--Andy Richardson