Despite winning just four games the year prior, the New England Patriots won 14 regular season games in the 2025 season, but did also have the easiest NFL schedule since 1999. With that said, wins are wins, as the Patriots won thrice in the playoffs and were able to advance all the way to the Super Bowl.
The Seattle Seahawks proved to be too much, and when that game ended, many people had continued to say that the Patriots were only winning as much as they did due to the easy schedule. That wasn't totally inaccurate, as the 2026 season could further prove that the Patriots were only truly good against bad teams.
Week 1 of the 2026 NFL Season brought us a rematch of Super Bowl LX, and it had the same result, as even without quarterback Sam Darnold for most of the game, the Seahawks were able to expose the Patriots again and win. With this loss from New England, it could prove that the AFC is wide open this year.
The AFC might be wide open this year based on what the New England Patriots did in Week 1
The Patriots finished with a 14-3 regular season record last year, which ended up being good for the No. 2 seed. New England was able to beat the Los Angeles Chargers, Houston Texans, and Denver Broncos en route too the Super Bowl.
With that said, all three teams had major flaws that, frankly, made the Pats' Super Bowl run easier than it should have been. When you look deeper into this, the Patriots potentially being a regression team could also muddy things in the AFC playoff picture, as this team is clearly talented enough to still win a ton of games and at least slide into a Wild Card spot, right?
It'd be hard to imagine a 14-win team that didn't have any major losses losing enough the following year to not make the playoffs. The Buffalo Bills could now overwhelmingly be looked at as the favorite in the AFC East in 2026, and while Week 1 is often a liar, it's also sometimes not.
And it makes you wonder if other division winners in the AFC could have the same fate? The Jacksonville Jaguars simply aren't as talented as the Texans, for example, and having won the division by just one game in 2025 gives them a razor-thin margin for error this year.
Many have looked at Denver as a team set to regress due to their countless one-score wins last year and the presence of both Los Angeles and Kansas City. The Chiefs had won the division nine years in a row prior to Denver winning it in 2025, and the Chiefs have gotten a good bit of offseason hype as well.
The AFC North could also be 'up for grabs' the most, as the pedestrian Pittsburgh Steelers feel like the third-best team there now, especially with the Baltimore Ravens healthy and the Cincinnati Bengals overhauling the defense this offseason.
All in all, the Patriots' Week 1 loss could open up an entirely new can of worms regarding how vulnerable the AFC division winners are this year. It could end up creating a chaotic AFC playoff picture.
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