Patriots Set for Playoff Run After Passing Last Test with Road Win over Chargers

The New England Patriots don't have anything left to prove.

Frankly, there's no one left on their schedule to prove anything against anyway.

With a Week 14 Sunday Night Football 23-14 win over the San Diego Chargers on the West Coast, the Patriots have done all they really need to do between now and the end of the season. Quarterback Tom Brady didn't put up crazy numbers, but he was darn good at 28-of-44 with 317 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. The Patriots won on the back of 20 unanswered points, which saw both their offense and especially their defense step things up considerably as the game went on. Though the offense deserves a lot of credit for scoring 10 in the fourth quarter, much of that was actually driven by defensive play.

In fact, other than that aforementioned intensity, a lot of the ways one could look at this game start to lean toward the Chargers if anything.

It was an intensity that the Patriots couldn't muster on the road just a few weeks ago at Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers, and it's an intensity they'll need if they're going to make a deep run in a wide-open AFC playoff field.

It's also an intensity they won't need for the next couple of weeks.

See, the thing about the Patriots' schedule is that it's all but over. Yes, there are technically three games left, but it's at home (where the Patriots are all but unbeatable—especially this late in the season) against the Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills and on the road only once against the New York Jets.

The Patriots lost to the Dolphins in Miami in Week 1, but they have beaten the Bills and the Jets on their respective home turfs with a combined 64 points. The Pats going 2-1 is conceivable, but anything less would go totally against anything we've seen over the past 10 weeks.

Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2292869-patriots-set-for-playoff-run-after-passing-last-test-with-road-win-over-chargers