New England Patriots - NESN.com
The Patriots can learn plenty from this weekend’s festivities at Lincoln Financial Field and Arrowhead Stadium.
The Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders will meet at the former, taking their division rivalry to its apex. The Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills will meet at the latter, writing yet another chapter of their intense conflict over the last several years.
New England, on the other hand, will be on the couch.
Mike Vrabel, Eliot Wolf, Ryan Cowden and a whole host of others will spend that time looking to gain insight into how those teams reached the pinnacle of the sport — with each displaying their own obvious lesson to learn from:
Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson and Lane Johnson on one side, Jordan Davis, Jalen Carter and Milton Williams on the other. The Eagles are absolutely stacked with big bodies, which is why they’ve been so successful over the last several seasons.
Philadelphia makes no bones about its identity, as each game’s primary objective is to control the clock by running the ball and forcing the opposition to be one-dimensional when they get a chance to possess it. It’s not the sexiest way to build a roster, but spending first- (Davis, Carter, Nolan Smith), second- (Dickerson, Jurgens) and third-round (Williams, Jalyx Hunt) picks on linemen has put the club in a position to remain successful for long stretches — which is kind of the goal, no?
The Commanders were in the same spot as you entering last offseason — looking to make some noise as a four-win team with inexperienced front-office personnel, a new head coach entering his second run at it and several holes across the roster.
Washington nailed everything they faced. Dan Quinn had a plan, and allowed Adam Peters to execute it by building out a roster to support rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels. New England would be lucky to have a season half as productive as this one.
Josh Allen showed flashes throughout his first few seasons in Buffalo, but was never quite able to put things together behind a bad offensive line and without any notable talent around him.
The Bills fixed that, taking big swings to land the likes of wide receiver Stefon Diggs and drafting talented weapons like Khalil Shakir, Gabe Davis, James Cook, Dalton Kincaid, Keion Coleman and Ray Davis. The Patriots should make a priority of taking swings to help Drake Maye.
The Chiefs built a superpower, but you can’t sustain success like they have without making difficult and smart decisions year after year.
Kansas City has supported title hopes by hitting big on draft picks (L’Jarius Sneed, Trey Smith, Creed Humphrey, Trent McDuffie, Rashee Rice), deciding on the right players to pay (Patrick Mahomes, Chris Jones, Humphrey) and letting the right ones walk away (Sneed). It’s hard enough to build a contender, but keeping one is all the...
