With the New England Patriots’ season in the books after exiting the playoffs in the opening round, here are three positives and negatives from the year.
A year after winning the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots will spend the rest of the 2020 NFL Playoffs at home. The defending champions were eliminated from postseason play in the Wild Card Round, falling at home to the Tennessee Titans, 20-13, on Saturday.
With the loss, the Patriots saw their season come to an end early, suffering their first home playoff loss since the 2012 season while exiting the postseason the earliest they have since 2009.
Overall, New England had its season come to a close after compiling a regular-season record of 12-4 overall. After starting the season winning nine of their first 10 contests, the Patriots finished up the year struggling, losing three of their final five games and those struggling ways followed them into the playoffs.
Throughout the course of the regular season schedule, New England was able to claim its 11th straight AFC East title, finishing ahead of the Buffalo Bills, New York Jets and Miami Dolphins in the division standings.
The Patriots, which held one of the top two spots in the AFC for a majority of the year, ended up falling to the No. 3 seed in the final week of the year which resulted in them taking part in the opening round of the postseason against the Titans.
After an up-and-down regular season and a disappointing showing in the AFC Wild Card Game to kick off the playoffs, there are now many questions that New England will be faced with as it heads into the offseason the earliest it has in a while.
From addressing the big question surrounding quarterback Tom Brady and if he will return to the Patriots for a 21st season, to focusing on adding pieces to a few different areas on the team, New England now will begin a rare important offseason going into the 2020 campaign next year.
With the season now in the past and the offseason officially here for the Patriots, let’s look back at the 2019 season and come up with some takeaways and a few positives and negatives from the year that was for New England.