The New England Patriots will open the 2016 National Football League season on the road on a Sunday night against the Arizona Cardinals. The Patriots are scheduled for their next prime time contests with two Sunday Night Football games in a three-week period.
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O’Brien’s five seasons with New England and all the connections to the Patriots won’t affect how he views the 2016 schedule and his first trip back to Gillette Stadium.
Though 11-5 is a perfectly respectable mark for most teams – and one that ESPN.com’s team of experts predict will allow Bill Belichick’s squad to secure its 13th AFC East title in 14 years – it actually would be the worst finish by any Patriots team since 2009. New England has not played at Buffalo this late in the season since a Week 16 matchup in 2010.
The Patriots will have two weeks to prepare for a Super Bowl XLIX rematch with the Seattle Seahawks on November 13. Some teams get stuck focusing exclusively on immediate needs, others get infatuated with a player and overspend, while others build for the future and never take care of the present. Then, after the trip to San Francisco (which will be San Mateo, Calif., native Tom Brady’s first game against his “hometown” team at its home stadium), the Patriots will have a much shorter road trip – to the New Jersey Meadowlands to face the Jets on November 27, another NBC prime-time affair.
The Patriots will play the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks and Houston Texans at Gillette Stadium.
The NFL announced the schedules for all 32 teams on Thursday, and the Patriots have a schedule that’s become typical for them during their long run of success.
The Patriots will host the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, December 4.
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The Patriots close out the regular season with consecutive division games. “They did it last year but again this year”. It will be their first visit to Sun Life Stadium since they defeated Miami 24-23 there in 2004.
