Two Wild Card games remain to determine next week’s Divisional Round matchups. Tonight, the New England Patriots host the Los Angeles Chargers and tomorrow night the National Football League completes its Wild Card weekend with the Houston Texans visiting the Pittsburgh Steelers.
When a team dominates for more than a decade and then fades to also-rans there are logical reasons to be applied to their decline. First, their winning ways had their players endure the wear-and-tear of longer seasons with playoff games following the regular schedule. Second, their success has them picking late in the annual draft, offering teams with less success first crack at the projected better players. Finally, when a team kicks your ass for years and now even though the men wearing their uniforms are not as good, a team prepares and attacks like they were still battling the better squads.
For years after their success their uniforms still incite opponents' best efforts.
This pattern was true when I first started following the NFL and the Green Bay Packers with Vince Lombardi dominated the game. After their success, and the departure of Lombardi in 1968, the Packers were also-rans for a quarter of a century, playing in only two playoff games over the next 25 years. The Packers won the first two Super Bowls, but there was a 30 gap between their second and third Super Bowl triumphs.
The Miami Dolphins were the best in football in the early 70’s, appeared in three straight Super Bowls, won two of them, but haven’t captured a Super Bowl title since the 1973 season. Their most recent appearance in a Super Bowl was a loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Roman Numeral XIX. On the heels of the Dolphins success came the Pittsburgh Steelers, who dominated most of the 1970’s and won their fourth Super Bowl to complete the 1979 season.
Even the Steelers, one of the most successful franchises in the league, struggled for a number of years after their glorious play during that decade. The 49ers were the best team in the 80’s. They maintained excellence for more than a decade while winning four Super Bowls but haven’t grabbed a Vince Lombardi Trophy since the 1994 season.
With this as a history lesson, one could expect the New England Patriots, who along with quarterback Tom Brady ruled the league for nearly 20 seasons, would have a severe drop-off when the winning magic ran out. It looked that way last year when in their first season in decades without Bill Belichick their head coach, the Patriots finished last in the AFC East Division standings.
Then, seemingly way ahead of schedule, New England under first-year head coach Mike Vrabel and second-year quarterback Drake Maye, went from Super Bowl odds of 75 to 1 in September to 9 to 1 as the playoffs opened this weekend.
Today, they look to reduce those odds with a home win over the Los Angeles Chargers. While Maye is looking for a postseason win in his first trip to the playoffs, Los Angeles Quarterback Justin Herbert is also looking for his initial postseason victory in his third attempt. In the 2022 playoffs, he led the Chargers to a big lead over the Jacksonville Jaguars only to get run down in the second half and lose. Last year, Herbert was favored on the road and lost to the Houston Texans.
Will Maye get a win in his first try, or is Herbert due?
The Patriots are favored in this one, they may get it, but the percentage play is both with Herbert and the even better possibility of winning the wager with the point spread.
Qoxhi Picks: Los Angeles Chargers (+3½) over New England Patriots