{"id":769890,"date":"2026-02-22T22:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T22:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/769890\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T22:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T22:48:20","slug":"former-super-bowl-champion-isnt-buying-patriots-2025-easy-schedule-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/769890\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Super Bowl champion isn\u2019t buying Patriots\u2019 2025 \u2018easy schedule\u2019 narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was plenty of talk<\/a> when it came to the Patriots<\/a>\u2019 success in 2025 because of their schedule<\/a>. <\/p>\n

New England statistically had one of the easiest schedules last season. The team finished 14-3 en route to a Super Bowl 60 appearance<\/a> before the Patriots fell to the Seattle Seahawks. <\/p>\n

The Patriots\u2019 path to the Super Bowl also saw them play a Los Angeles Chargers team that featured Justin Herbert with a broken hand, a Houston Texans team without Nico Collins and a Denver Broncos squad without Bo Nix.<\/p>\n

Super Bowl 45 champion Greg Jennings wants to do away with the strength of schedule talk when it comes to the 2025 Patriots.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to stop this,\u201d the former Green Bay Packers wide receiver said on \u201cFirst Take.\u201d<\/a> \u201cNo. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve heard, in any year of me being in tune with NFL football, it talked about as much as last year of a team having an easy schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot a single coach in my 10 years of players has ever gotten in front of a team and said, \u2018Guys, this year is gonna be tough. We have a first-place schedule,\u2019\u201d Jennings added<\/a>. \u201cOr, \u2018This year\u2019s gonna be a lot easier. We got a really layup schedule now. We can take advantage of this.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYour opponent is who your opponent\u2019s gonna be,\u201d he concluded<\/a>. \u201cYou understand you have to put together a game plan every single week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coach Mike Vrabel called the narrative \u201cmind-boggling<\/a>\u201d early in the season. He pointed to the fact that he doesn\u2019t make the schedule and that because of the salary cap, \u201ceverybody spends the same amount of money.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

The Patriots\u2019 schedule<\/a> will be harder in 2026 than in \u201825 which includes games against the Broncos, Buffalo Bills, Chicago Bears and Kansas City Chiefs.<\/p>\n

New England does have areas of need to address in the offseason if it wants to improve and make it back to the Super Bowl next year. The Patriots also have decisions to make on a handful of pending free agents<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was plenty of talk when it came to the Patriots\u2019 success in 2025 because of their schedule.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,2326,2094,6,208,16165],"class_list":{"0":"post-769890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-new-england","10":"tag-new-england-patriots","11":"tag-newengland","12":"tag-newenglandpatriots","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-patriots","15":"tag-super-bowl-lx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116116724548309916","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769890","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=769890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}