Patriots rooting guide: Who New England fans should root for in the Week 14 Sunday games

The 14th Sunday of NFL action has arrived, and it will be a comparatively chill one for the New England Patriots and their fans: the team will not be playing, courtesy of its upcoming Monday night matchup with the Arizona Cardinals.

That said, there is still a lot of high-stakes football on the menu on Sunday. So, let’s find out who Patriots fans should be cheering for in the 11 contests played today. Welcome to the latest edition of our Patriots Rooting Guide.

1 p.m. ET

New York Jets (7-5) at Buffalo Bills (9-3): Go Bills! As much as it might hurt, Buffalo is the clear rooting choice here: a Jets loss in combination with a Patriots win would allow New England to overtake the team in the standings and move into the seventh playoff seed again. | CBS, Paramount+, fuboTV

Cleveland Browns (5-7) at Cincinnati Bengals (8-4): Go Browns! While Cleveland would creep closer in the AFC playoff race, a win is still preferable compared to a Bengals W from a potential wild card perspective. | CBS, Paramount+, fuboTV

Houston Texans (1-10-1) at Dallas Cowboys (9-3): Go Cowboys! A Dallas victory would impact fewer strength of victory tiebreakers, so that is why the Cowboys are our pick here. | FOX, fuboTV

Minnesota Vikings (10-2) at Detroit Lions (5-7): Go Lions! Three words: strength of victory. The Patriots beat the Lions, but not the Vikings. So, Detroit is our pick. | FOX, fuboTV

Philadelphia Eagles (11-1) at New York Giants (7-4-1): Go good game! It doesn’t matter who wins that one, so let’s not waste any time with this NFC East battle. | FOX, fuboTV

Baltimore Ravens (8-4) at Pittsburgh Steelers (5-7): Go Steelers! The Patriots hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over Pittsburgh, meaning that a Steelers win would not hurt them too much. It would hurt the Ravens, though, who are a potential wild card competitor — especially with Lamar Jackson set to miss time with an injury. | CBS, Paramount+, fuboTV

Jacksonville Jaguars (4-8) at Tennessee Titans (7-5): Go Titans! It does not really matter form a Patriots perspective because somebody has to win the AFC South. Hence, Tennessee is our pick so that Jacksonville does not enter the wild card race again. | CBS, Paramount+, fuboTV

4:05 p.m. ET

Kansas City Chiefs (9-3) at Denver Broncos (3-9): Go Broncos! Denver won’t make the playoffs anyway, so why not root for them to maybe help push a few of the Patriots’ future draft picks acquired via trade — Carolina’s third and sixth plus Los Angeles’ fourth — a bit up. | CBS, Paramount+, fuboTV

4:25 p.m. ET

Carolina Panthers (4-8) at Seattle Seahawks (7-5): Go Seahawks! Speaking of Carolina’s third- and sixth-round picks. The worse the Panthers are, the better for New England in that case. So, rooting against the team is the way to go. | FOX, fuboTV

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-6) at San Francisco 49ers (8-4): Go good game! Another all-NFC battle with limited impact on the Patriots and their position in the playoff race. | FOX, fuboTV

8:20 p.m. ET

Miami Dolphins (8-4) at Los Angeles Chargers (6-6): Go... Chargers? This is a tricky one, but if everything goes according to plan down the stretch an L.A. win here would actually be the preferred outcome from a New England perspective. Ideally, it will not matter at the end while it might help the Patriots overtake Miami further down the line. Rooting for Miami to help drop the Chargers back a game would also be totally fine, so this one comes down to preference really. | NBC, Peacock, fuboTV

Make sure to head down to the comment section to discuss the game, and to take a look at this story stream for all of our Patriots-Cardinals coverage.