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Patriots 2017 Schedule Analysis

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The Patriots’ 2017 season has been revealed/leaked early in all its glory, setting up the campaign that stands between them and winning three of four Super Bowls, twice.

The Pats will play their usual slate of divisional games, while facing the NFC South and AFC West, while also matching up with the first-place teams from the AFC North and the AFC South. I know there’s always plenty of huffing and puffing about how easy the Patriots schedule can be, but it’s all set up on a rotating basis and really engineered to give the best teams the hardest competition.

The 2017 slate has a light start and a light finish, but there’s a tough road stretch in the middle, all against AFC contenders.

First things that jump out:

— Patriots have five national TV games, including the Thursday kickoff opener, their Thursday Night Football game in early October, Sunday Night Football matchups against the Falcons and Broncos, and a Monday Night Football one against the Dolphins.

— They have five-out-of-six on the road in late November/early December — at Denver, at Oakland, vs. Miami, at Buffalo, at Miami (MNF), then at Pittsburgh. That stretch will be the defining one of the regular season, especially the game in Pittsburgh. They ease in and out of the season, but those six games are the heart of the schedule against their toughest opponents in the conference.

— Three of the first five opponents are in the NFC. That will really allow them some flexibility at the start of the season. A loss in one of those wouldn’t hurt that much in the standings. Flip side is that it’s all AFC opponents from Week 7 on, making the stretch run even more vital. Still, closing with home games against the Bills and Jets isn’t exactly daunting.

— Their first AFC East game doesn’t come until Week 6, which seems incredibly late. Five of the last six are in the division. The NFL seems like they want to keep the door open on the division title as long as possible here.

— The Bye Week comes in Week 9 which is ideal, right in the middle of the season.

— There are 10 games that start at 1pm.

Let’s dive into the game-by-game analysis!

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Patriots Extend James White Thru 2020

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James White‘s very excellent 2017 continued on Tuesday night as Adam Schefter reported that White had inked a three year extension with the Patriots, a deal that will keep him on the team through 2020.


I’m still pretty flabbergasted by White’s progress over his first three seasons. Couldn’t get on the field as a rookie, was a passing-down only back in 2015 who had just five receptions on 16 targets in the AFC Championship loss and then, in year three, he just keeps getting better all year long until he caps it all off by doing just what we thought he never could do — plow his way into the endzone through multiple tacklers to win the Super Bowl in overtime.

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Patriots Sign RFA Mike Gillislee to Offer Sheet

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According to multiple reports the Patriots signed Bills restricted free agent Mike Gillislee to an offer sheet, reportedly in the neighborhood of two years, $6.4 million. The Bills now have five days to match the offer or let Gillislee walk to New England, the second Bills RFA to do so in the last two seasons (Chris Hogan).

The writing is definitely on the wall for LeGarrette Blount now. He’s reportedly had an offer on the table since the start of free agency and is still hoping for more money. Gillislee would have a similar early down, short yardage role that Blount has held down for the better part of four seasons.

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Amendola Re-Structures Patriots Deal Again

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While it was a pretty good bet Danny Amendola wouldn’t be playing for his projected $7.8 million cap hit, there was some question if the Pats would just decide it was time to cut ties with the 31-year-old receiver. Instead the Pats did decide they wanted the clutch player back and will restructure his deal for the third straight year to make it happen.

The other reason for pause prior to this announcement was that suddenly the Pats have an embarrassment of riches at the wide out position. Brandin Cooks was brought in this offseason via trade, while both Malcolm Mitchell and Chris Hogan had very good seasons in 2016. Throw in vital component Julian Edelman and it’s easy to see how it could’ve made sense to move on from Amendola, especially when the diminutive receiver was kept on the bench for most of the 2016 season with his injuries being carefully managed.

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CNBC: Belichick on Everything

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This is a can’t-miss Belichick interview in which he touches on just about everything — from his coaching start, to Brady, to his mistakes and his kids. I can never get enough of this stuff and it’s always great when you get him relaxed and ready to talk.

Maybe the most interesting moment for me was Belichick describing the moment he realized he could coach at this level and ironically it came against the Patriots.

We were 1-4. We were playing the Patriots, who were 4-1. They had a great team, and I went back to an experience that I had in Baltimore. I talked to our offensive coordinator at that time, and said, “Look, I know we haven’t used this formation, but I studied this formation when I was at Baltimore last year. I think this is really going to give the Patriots a problem. Can we take a look at this?’ So we went through it, we looked at it and used it. We won the game by three touchdowns. It was a huge upset. That was kind of one of those [moments] where I was like okay, I can coach in this league.

This one is well worth the entire 15 minutes!

Patriots Ready to Move On From Blount?

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After an extended quiet period the Patriots were back in the news with a couple visits this morning, bringing in Buffalo RFA Mike Gillislee and Miami RFA Damien Williams.


Yes, it’s always fun when the Pats get ready to raid their AFC East rivals, but you’d think at this point the Bills and Dolphins would do their best to match any offer the Patriots make, except that, oh yeah, the Patriots have more cap flexibility and can pretty much do what they want.

Of the two, Gillislee is the more appealing to me and as someone who’s ready to move on from LeGarrette Blount, I’d welcome the addition. It was reported earlier this week that Blount has had a contract sitting on the table from the Patriots since the start of free agency and is still looking for more money. The fact that he hasn’t gotten a better offer elsewhere, coming off a record-setting campaign for the Pats, says volumes.

Blount certainly has his moments, but his inconsistency in big games leaves me wondering if it’s more the overall Patriots scheme that is most responsible for his best successes, which often seemed to come against the weakest teams. Look at his playoff numbers below and the trend is pretty clear.

Playoffs Rushing & Receiving Table
Game Game Rush Rush Rush Rush Rush Rush
Year Age G GS Rush Yds TD Lng Y/A Y/G
2013 27 2 1 29 172 4 73 5.9 86.0
2014 28 3 0 47 189 3 22 4.0 63.0
2016 30 3 1 35 109 1 18 3.1 36.3
Care Care 8 2 111 470 8 73 4.2 58.8
Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/13/2017.

Williams seems more or less just a guy. He’s never topped 36 carries in a season but has had over 20 catches in each of his first three years and can return kicks. Would he suddenly take off with New England? I’m more interested in Rex Burkhead at this point.

But Gillislee is more intriguing. Belichick had this to say about him last season:

“Some of his time has been limited because of McCoy, who has had such an explosive season, but when he’s had a chance to play he’s done a good job,” said Belichick. “He had a big run against San Francisco, like a 44-yard touchdown. A strong, downhill runner, one cut guy, that’s hard to tackle. Good complementary player to McCoy. McCoy is exceptional, but Gillislee is a good back too.”

Gillislee averaged 5.7 yards-per-attempt in each of the last two seasons. He’s just the kind of under-the-radar player that the Patriots are famous for plucking and turning into a key contributor. Not that that is what they need from him. He’d join three backs who are already pretty balanced overall. It seems clear the Patriots want a deep backfield that can do just about anything. Burkhead has some power, but Gillislee would bring even more explosiveness.

Patriots 2017 Preseason Opponents Announced

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In one of the more anticlimactic moments of the offseason, the NFL announced preseason opponents today, in the first small sign that the 2017 season is approaching faster than we realize. This summer the Patriots will face:


The Patriots will play the Giants like they usually do in the final week of the preseason, but the other opponents leave a little bit to be desired. There’s already reports of the Patriots and Texans planning some joint practice sessions. Perhaps, with some old Patriots execs running things with the Lions now, the Pats will do the same with Detroit.

Usually in the preseason I like to see a variety of good quarterbacks. Facing one who can run is always good for preparation too. Unfortunately the quarterbacks of this preseason won’t give the Pats’ defense the kind of experience they’ve gotten the past couple seasons when they saw QBs like Drew Brees and Cam Newton.

Still there’s plenty of talent on the defensive side of the ball for the Jags and Texans and Matthew Stafford in Detroit should present some challenges.

But ultimately who they play in the preseason doesn’t matter all that much. It’s just a nice reminder in early April that August will soon be here.