Mike Vrabel hasn’t just won over the Patriots locker room amid a 4-2 start.
Now the computers are believers in his team, too.
In a new playoff simulator at The Athletic, New England has an 86 percent chance to make the postseason. That’s the second-highest percentage in the AFC, trailing only Buffalo (89 percent).
It has the AFC East as essentially a coin flip, with New England at 51 percent and Buffalo at 49 percent, but gives the Bills a better chance to win the Super Bowl, at 10 percent to New England’s 5 percent chance.
“We estimate odds by randomly simulating the remainder of the season thousands of times and counting how often each team makes the playoffs, gets the No. 1 seed, the No. 1 draft pick and so on,” The Athletic writes. “We estimate each team’s probability of winning each remaining game using a statistical forecast that incorporates a host of data, including team records, roster changes, weather, game location and more advanced measures like expected points added and success rate.”
With a win over New Orleans coupled with a Bills loss last week, the Patriots lead the division for the first time since 2021. However, Vrabel wasn’t ready to throw a Super Bowl parade just yet.
“Well, they’re not going to cancel the rest of the season, and that’s not really our focus right now,” Vrabel said. “But I would say that we’ve done – we’ve put ourselves in a position to play meaningful games – not that they aren’t all meaningful, but certainly focusing on this one on the road (in Tennessee this week). Our last one of three here. And I appreciate us not looking too far ahead.
“They just attacked Buffalo, they figured out what we needed to do against the Saints and then we got back, got things cleaned up and tried to get some rest. Now focusing on Tennessee and the challenge that that presents. Seeing if we can’t continue to enhance the things that we do well, improve the things that we’re not doing well and then eliminate the stuff that could or will or has gotten us beat.”
Story by Chris Mason, masslive.com
