Sure Thing: Patriots a Lock for the AFC Championship Game

Too early for bold predictions? Not so, says Randy Woodall.

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September 11, 2007

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There's no doubt the New England Patriots will make it to the 2007 AFC Championship Game.

Any time you have quarterback like Tom Brady and a receiver like Randy Moss, you're going to be hard to beat. Sunday was just the beginning of things to come.

And look at the the rest of the AFC. None of the other contenders have the Pats' offensive balance—from Brady and Moss to Donté Stallworth, Wes Welker, and the running game.

The New England defense will always be one of the best in he league, because Bill Belichick knows how to get the most out of his players. If you can make Troy Brown a competent cornerback, you're a defensive guru.

The only question now is who the Pats will face for the right to go to the Super Bowl.

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comments (2) write a comment »

reply to comment by Zander
9 months ago

I think you're jumping the gun a little bit here Randy. I realize how tempting it is to make such a prediction, given how good the Patriots looked Sunday and how badly they steamrolled the Jets, who by all accounts are a solid squad.

But let's give the league a little bit longer to develop, shall we? The Patriots still have to get past Peyton and the Colts and a hungry Chargers team waiting for revenge in order to get to the championship game.

In the Super Bowl itself, I'm going to be a hypocrite here and say that the Lombardi Trophy is going to an AFC team without question.
reply to comment by Anonymous
9 months ago

The Patriots' offense does look pretty balanced, but to say that no other AFC team can match it is going a bit too far. The Colts are still the Gold standard in terms of offensive balance. Manning vs Brady, Addai versus Maroney, and Clark versus Watson maybe too close to call, but Harrison and Wayne trump Moss and Stallworth any day and the Colts' offensive line is far superior.

A highly under-rated contender this season may be the Denver Broncos. In my opinion, a scarier pairing than Brady and Moss is Mike Shanahan and Travis Henry. Shanahan has gotten 1500+ yard seasons out of no-name backs, and a back like Henry could get 2000+ yards in that system. Align this with the promise that Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall have shown (the latter beat Brandon Stokley for the no. 2 spot opposite Walker; Stokley would easily be the no. 2 receiver on this Patriots offense and 90% of the offenses around the league), and it's clear they are going to be a force next season for sure. However, they might just spring a surprise or two. I wouldn't want to run into them in the playoffs if I was the Patriots.