New England won against Buffalo yesterday, 13-0. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the whole story of the afternoon. They had a great job of holding it up, but the New England Patriots weren’t able to make it up to the playoffs this year. The Miami Dolphins won yesterday also and thereby clinched their spot in the playoffs. That AFC East mess that we were looking at has now been decided and both New England and the New York Jets are out, despite both teams having very impressive seasons. New England landed at 11-5 on the season. Meanwhile the San Diego Chargers made it into the playoffs with a .500 record. That’s justice..

They need to win. That much is inflexible. Without a victory against Buffalo this Sunday, the Patriots will be going home. However, they also need someone to lose. If the Dolphins lose, the Patriots will win the AFC East title and the number 3 spot. If Baltimore loses, New England can slip by in the wild card, number 6 slot. And if that happens, they will face theh Dolphins in the first round of the playoffs. The whole playoff scenario is posted on NFL.com.

If we thought that Sunday’s game between the New England Patriots and the Arizona Cardinals was going to be an amazing passing show, it turned out a little differently. All the elements were there. Except that Kurt Warner didn’t really show up. He had a grand total of 30 passing yards and was retired for the day. Matt Cassell had a great game, with 345 yards and two touchdowns. The Patriots won 47-7 and kept their playoff hopes alive and well. They are still in a head to head tie with Miami, though Miami wins the tiebreaker scenario. We’ll have to watch, but alas, New England vs Arizona wasn’t as good as we’d hoped.

When Cassel and the Patriots meet Warner and the Cardinals this weekend, it’s most likely going to be a demonstration of passing skills from each quarterback. It’d be safe to say that both teams are fairly similar, operating out of a pass-first type offense. Add in struggling defenses for both sides and it could be a high scoring affair. However, with the run advantage going to the Patriots, that could be the slight edge New England needs to win and hopefully break out of this 3-way tie.

The Patriots looked a lot more like their old selves yesterday in Oakland, when Matt Cassell threw a career high 4 touchdowns in one day. Randy Moss caught two of those, giving him an exciting reentry into the league after an extended injured list time. Oakland had nothing to lose, and so they didn’t lose anything but the game. But the AFC East is so close that the Pats needed to really take this game, and probably need to take all the games going forward to the end of the season. The AFC East has a three-way tie for first place, even after this week’s games, with the Jets and Dolphins also vying for the division title. It will be an exciting end to the season and we’ll see what happens.

After that much-too-close game against the Seahawks last week, this weekend should be a nice confidence builder for the Patriots. The Oakland Raiders, once a feared opponent now a despondent team, should be perfect fodder for the hungry Patriots passing offense. Cassel should be able throw foran easy 250 yards, if not nother 400. Let’s make a conservative guess and say Oakland 6, Patriots 456.

The Pats took on Seattle last weekend and we thought that they would take the game with ease.  The Seahawks are just a 2-10 backbencher in their division. The 24-21 score in the end was only cemented into place with about 2:44 left in the 4th quarter when the Sammy Morris dove into the endzone.  In a way, it was nice to see the Patriots bring on the good game that we know from the olden days of the team. They haven’t played this well, especially in the clutch, in quite awhile, although Mr. Cassel has been doing a very impressive job in the QB slot. After Brady got injured, we’d have never thought that we’d be this good this year, so great job this weekend!

Still reeling from the large loss suffered at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Patriots will have a chance to do some much needed confidence building when they face off against the 2-10 Seattle Seahawks this Sunday. This will be the first of two easy matchups the Patriots will play, facing off against the Raiders next week. These are two must win games for the Patriots, not only because of the embarassment that would come with losing to either team, but also to keep their playoff hopes alive.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are one of this years big teams. They play in a tough division and an even tougher Conference. But so do the New England Patriots. Over the last few years, the Patriots have been the dominant team in that part of the world, although the Steelers won the Super Bowl a couple years ago. So take a guess who won? The Patriots were outscored 30-3 in the last 3 quarters of the game this weekend and lost 33-10. The Steelers took it. New England has several must-win games ahead, and even that may not save them this season.  It would be the first time they haven’t gone to the playoffs in quite awhile, but in a year without their headliner QB, things are bound to be different. Don’t write the obits yet, but they’d better step up in a big way.