{"id":675962,"date":"2026-01-14T06:45:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T06:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/675962\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T06:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T06:45:14","slug":"colin-cowherd-gives-patriots-surprising-spot-in-playoff-power-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/675962\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Cowherd Gives Patriots Surprising Spot In Playoff Power Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After a crazy Wild Card Weekend, only eight teams remain in the NFL playoff field. Fortunately for the New England Patriots, they are one of them.<\/p>\n<p>The Patriots had the second-largest margin of victory of last weekend\u2019s six postseason games with their 16-3 win over the Los Angeles Chargers. It wasn\u2019t pretty, but New England got the job done, earning its first playoff win in seven years.<\/p>\n<p>It was also a big step for many of the Patriots\u2019 young stars, including <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2026\/01\/why-patriots-drake-maye-winning-nfl-mvp-would-be-unprecedented\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NFL MVP candidate<\/a> Drake Maye. Now they have some postseason experience under their belts and have proven they can win a big game.<\/p>\n<p>With Maye leading the offense and the defense coming off its <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2026\/01\/former-nfl-qb-lauds-patriots-defense-after-playoff-masterpiece-vs-chargers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">best performance of the season<\/a>, New England looks even more dangerous. The Patriots are arguably the best team in the AFC and have a legit shot at the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n<p>Colin Cowherd agrees, ranking them second in <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TheHerd\/status\/2011165814045684153\" rel=\"nofollow\">this week\u2019s edition of \u201cHerd Heirarchy.\u201d<\/a> The only team he has higher than them is the Seattle Seahawks, who are coming off a first-round bye as the NFC\u2019s No. 1 seed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn a weird way, it reminds me a little of the Brady-Belichick Patriots,\u201d Cowherd said. \u201cI don\u2019t know where their hole is\u2026There\u2019s nothing to pick on with New England. I have \u2019em at two.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cowherd\u2019s right: the Patriots do everything well. They run the ball well, pass well, defend the run and cover the pass. They\u2019re well-coached by Mike Vrabel and don\u2019t make many mistakes for a young team. They\u2019re athletic and they play hard, so it\u2019s hard to find fault with them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Sure, New England benefited from an easy schedule this season, but that\u2019s in the past. The Patriots just dominated the Chargers, and there are no easy teams left.<\/p>\n<p>New England will try to prove Cowherd right when it <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2026\/01\/texans-demeco-ryans-not-concerned-with-environment-patriots\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hosts the Houston Texans<\/a> this weekend, who are coming off their own massive win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a crazy Wild Card Weekend, only eight teams remain in the NFL playoff field. Fortunately for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[6405,7,1167,249,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-675962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-colin-cowherd","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-new-england","11":"tag-new-england-patriots","12":"tag-newengland","13":"tag-newenglandpatriots","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115892107648135619","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675962","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=675962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}