Pats Pulpit
Wrapping up the regular season with a dominant 38-10 win over the Miami Dolphins, the New England Patriots have learned the date and time for their playoff opener.
As was announced by the NFL on Sunday night, the AFC East champions will be hosting the Los Angeles Chargers at Gillette Stadium on Sunday, Jan. 11 at 8 p.m. ET.
The wild card game will mark New England’s first home playoff contest since the 2019 season, when the team went one-and-done against a Tennessee Titans squad coached by Mike Vrabel. Since then, it only returned to the postseason once, a 47-17 beatdown at the hands of the Buffalo Bills to end the 2021 campaign.
Four years later, the Patriots have not just punched their ticket to the postseason again but also earned the right to open the tournament in Foxborough. They did so by finishing the regular season with a 14-3 record, tied for best in the AFC, and only missing out on the top seed to the Denver Broncos because of the common games tiebreaker.
The second-seeded Patriots will therefore enter the postseason next weekend, and in a prime time slot.
The full schedule for NFL wild card weekend looks as follows:
4:30 p.m. ET: 5 Los Angeles Rams at 4 Carolina Panthers: 4:30 p.m. ET (FOX, FOX Deportes)
8 p.m. ET: 7 Green Bay Packers at 2 Chicago Bears (Prime Video)
1 p.m. ET: 6 Buffalo Bills at 3 Jacksonville Jaguars (CBS, Paramount+)
4:30 p.m. ET: 6 San Francisco 49ers at 3 Philadelphia Eagles (FOX, FOX Deportes)
8 p.m. ET 7 Los Angeles Chargers at 2 New England Patriots (NBC, Peacock, Universo)
8 p.m. ET: 5 Houston Texans at 4 Baltimore/Pittsburgh (ESPN/ABC)
