This is the game that matters. All those other ones the New England Patriots played before this one are meaningless in the face of the Super Bowl.
That said, it’s not all that surprising they have made it this far. Playing in the AFC Championship game is tradition for them at this point and this year, they were fortunate enough to play the Jacksonville Jaguars--so no one was even a tick nervous headed into the contest (although credit to Jacksonville, they were great this year).
The big question coming into this year’s Super Bowl was: is Gronk good to go or not? We saw the Patriots win one without him last year and lose one with him against the Giants six years ago. Oh, and they won with him against the Seahawks. But yeah, he’s always an asset to the team. And it looks like he is going to be an asset yet again this Sunday. He told reporters on Sunday that he is going to play in the Super Bowl. Good. That’s what we like to hear.
So the Patriots have two guys playing who had over 1,000 receiving yards during the regular season: Gronk and Brandin Cooks. That’s a reason to feel really good about this game. So is the team being favored to win by 4.5 points, according to CBS. Plus: remember what happened last time the Patriots went for their third Super Bowl ring in four years against the Philadelphia Eagles. That was pretty, pretty good, if I recall.
The Patriots offense is hard to stop. The passing game is sharp. There’s a bevy of running backs, so teams have a tough time prepping for them, and the Eagles pass defense is average (ranks 17th of 32 NFL teams, according to ESPN). There should be some solid passing numbers from Brady--and some good receiving numbers from Gronk.
Will there be another ring? We’ll see.