The New England Patriots played in the early slate, but there are plenty of important games still on the schedule. Here’s the rooting guide.
4:05 PM ET
Bengals at Chargers: The Patriots will be rooting for the Bengals to win because I’d rather see Cincinnati as one of the wild card teams.
Broncos at 49ers: The Patriots will root for the 49ers because it’s always great to root against the Denver Broncos.
4:25 PM ET
Lions at Cardinals: The Patriots own the Lions third round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, so they’ll be rooting for the Cardinals to win for the sake of draft position.
Eagles at Cowboys: The Patriots own the Eagles seventh round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, so they’ll be rooting for Dallas for the sake of draft position.
Steelers at Raiders: New England will root for Oakland because it will give the Patriots some breathing room in front of Pittsburgh.
8:20 PM ET
Rams at Bears: This is a tricky game. The Patriots own the Bears second round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, so do you root for Chicago to lose for the sake of the draft pick? Or do you root for Chicago to win for the sake of the Patriots’ strength of victory, which could be an important tiebreaker? I say root for the draft pick because we’re also rooting for the Chargers to lose- and they’d be the only team that could cause the “strength of victory” tiebreaker to come into play.
Use this as the open thread for discussion.