{"id":492743,"date":"2026-01-04T22:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T22:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/492743\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T22:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T22:44:14","slug":"patriots-playoff-picture-how-jacksonville-houston-games-impact-new-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/492743\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots playoff picture: How Jacksonville, Houston games impact New England"},"content":{"rendered":"<ol id=\"articleLabel__list\" class=\"articleLabel__list\">\n<li id=\"articleLabel__listItem\" class=\"articleLabel__listItem\"><a id=\"articleLabel__link\" class=\"articleLabel__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.masslive.com\/patriots\/\" title=\"Navigate to Patriots\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Patriots<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul class=\"dateline\">\n<li class=\"dateline__updated\">Updated: Jan. 04, 2026, 4:21 p.m.<\/li>\n<li class=\"dateline__published\">|Published: Jan. 04, 2026, 4:13 p.m.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"sync\" alt=\"Patriots Jets Football\" class=\"hero-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/5TTZARCGEZDZZNAX4GEAN6SPFM.jpg\"  \/>New England Patriots center Garrett Bradbury (65) and quarterback Drake Maye (10) get ready to take the field before an NFL football game against the New York Jets, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025 in New York. (AP Photo\/Vera Nieuwenhuis)AP<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"N44TATYJHBEJNBETVDK4F223RQ\">FOXBOROUGH \u2014 If the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masslive.com\/patriots\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.masslive.com\/patriots\/\">Patriots<\/a> want to finish with one of the top two seeds in<a href=\"https:\/\/www.masslive.com\/topic\/playoff-picture\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.masslive.com\/topic\/playoff-picture\/index.html\"> the AFC Playoffs,<\/a> they\u2019ll have to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masslive.com\/patriots\/2026\/01\/5-things-to-watch-in-patriots-regular-season-finale-vs-dolphins.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.masslive.com\/patriots\/2026\/01\/5-things-to-watch-in-patriots-regular-season-finale-vs-dolphins.html\">beat the Dolphins. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"NB5S636TQNAWDIPPFSABGLXSQY\">Jacksonville\u2019s blowout win over Tennessee clinched the Jaguars the AFC South with a 13-4 record. If New England beats Miami, they\u2019d be guaranteed at least the No. 2 seed at 14-3. <\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"5SNDZU4O3BA45KN4THZZ2N2E2U\">They could be the No. 1 seed if Denver loses to the Chargers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"HJMUIPPUFVFMHGQOGBKLV5BKAQ\">But if the Patriots lose, they\u2019d fall to 13-4 and would be the No. 3 seed because Jacksonville holds the common-opponents tiebreaker over New England.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"IEV3YPZERFHIBKCEVQNDTVCC3M\">Houston\u2019s late win over Indianapolis meant the Titans are locked into the No. 5 seed and are no longer a possible opponent for the Patriots. They will play the winner of the Sunday Night Football game between the Ravens and Steelers, which will decide the AFC North title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"JXTTGDIBPBCUZASQDSNQXALLX4\">That leaves only the Bills and Chargers as possible playoff foes for the Patriots.<\/p>\n<p>Matt Vautour has covered sports professionally in Massachusetts since 1996 and has been a columnist at MassLive since 2018.<br \/>\nCovered: Super Bowl, World Series, NBA and Stanley Cup finals.<br \/>\nLoves: the Elam&#8230; more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patriots Updated: Jan. 04, 2026, 4:21 p.m. |Published: Jan. 04, 2026, 4:13 p.m. New England Patriots center Garrett&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":492744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,79718,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-492743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-nflraw25","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115839255571526839","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}