{"id":660990,"date":"2026-01-07T11:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T11:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/660990\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T11:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T11:37:11","slug":"game-preview-patriots-vs-chargers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/660990\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Preview: Patriots vs. Chargers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New England Patriots finished the 2025 season tied with the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks for the best record in the NFL with a 14-3 record to earn the No. 2 seed in the AFC Playoffs. The 14-3 record is a 10-game difference from the 4-13 finish in 2024. The 10-game improvement tied the 1999 Indianapolis Colts and the 2008 Miami Dolphins for the best turnaround in NFL history. The 1998 Colts were 3-13 and improved to 13-3 in 1999, and the 2007 Dolphins were 1-15 in 2007 and improved to 11-5 in 2008. This week, the Patriots will face the No. 7 seed Los Angeles Chargers at Gillette Stadium on Sunday night, the fifth time the two teams will meet in the postseason. The Patriots are 3-1 in the postseason against the Chargers. The Patriots and Chargers met in the 1963 AFL Championship Game played on Jan. 5, 1964, in San Diego with the Chargers taking a 51-10 decision. The Patriots have won the last three postseason meetings with a 24-21 win in San Diego in the AFC Divisional round on Jan. 20, 2007, a 21-12 win in the AFC Championship game played at Gillette Stadium on Jan. 20, 2008 and a 41-28 win in an AFC Divisional Playoff game on Jan. 13, 2019 at Gillette Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots finished the 2025 season tied with the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[241,7,17425,1263,1264,1014,262,95236,2444,2443,6],"class_list":["post-660990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-chargers","tag-chargers","tag-football","tag-game-preview","tag-hp-article","tag-hp-featured","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-los-angeles-chargers-at-new-england-patriots-2025-post-1","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleschargers","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115853619995273612","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}