BY SAM HOLLINGSWORTH
After earning the No. 1 seed in the AFC, the Patriots earned a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
But will the Patriots flop the way they did following this year’s regular-season bye (a 25-17 loss to the Steelers in Pittsburgh), or will we see something comparable to the postseason Patriots of 2004 (a 20-3 win over Peyton Manning and the Colts)?
The Patriots would probably just as well like to play this week, carrying the force of an eight-game win streak, though they could use the time off for healing.
“We’re going to do what we feel is most productive for the team (during the bye week) and then within that we might have to modify for some individuals depending on what their specific situation is,” New England head coach Bill Belichick said Tuesday. "We’ll take it on a case-by-case basis with the medical people.”
So, there are two ways to look at New England’s first-round bye.
First, all four of the Patriots' recent Super Bowl games came in seasons that New England earned a first-round bye. That would also obviously include the team’s three SB wins.
But, the other first-round bye earned was last year when New England was booted from the playoffs right at Gillette Stadium by the rival Jets. Combine that with this season’s regular season dud vs. the Steelers and a one-and-done two years ago against the Ravens, and New England skeptics have their reasons to be, well, skeptical, of these playoff Patriots.
“The most important thing is to play well,” Belichick told the media. “We’ve won at home, we’ve won on the road; we’ve lost at home, we’ve lost on the road. You can probably pretty much say that everybody — a lot of teams have experienced both those. I think the most important thing is to play well.”
We’ll see how the bye works for the Pats when they face the lowest still-playing AFC seed on Saturday, Jan. 14, at 8 p.m.
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