Patriots’ lucky path to Super Bowl 60 might end at Seahawks’ door

SAN FRANCISCO — The site of Super Bowl 60 has been a spectacle all week, but the loudest conversation orbiting around the big game isn’t about Bad Bunny’s halftime performance guest appearances. It’s about luck, and cold, unromantic math. And what those two things say about the Patriots’ improbable return to football’s biggest stage. 

There’s no way to sugarcoat it. The 2025 Patriots had one of the softest schedules in NFL history. Their opponents finished a combined 113-176, a .391 winning percentage that ranked last in the NFL this season and is tied for the third-easiest slate any team has faced in the past 50 years. Only the 1999 Rams (.363) and 1979 Buccaneers (.379) had it softer. That’s not “narrative.” That’s a cold hard fact.

Call it luck. Call it timing. Call it the NFL scheduling formula colliding with organizational chaos across the league. Whatever label you choose, the Patriots walked through a season in which nearly two-thirds of their games came against teams that either fired or failed to retain their head coach. Eleven games against lame-duck leadership — a number not matched since the 1925 Frankford Yellow Jackets. That’s right. One hundred years. That’s not an exaggeration; that’s absurdity.

And yet, to its credit, New England kept on winning.

“You can only beat what’s in front of you” has become the Patriots’ mantra and shield, repeated so often it’s nearly stitched into their hoodies. First-year coach Mike Vrabel has leaned into it with trademark bluntness.

“I can only coach one team at a time. I don’t make the schedule,” Vrabel said earlier this week when asked about his team having an easy path to Super Bowl 60. “That’s just mind-boggling to me … that there be strength of schedule. You got a salary cap. Everybody spends the same amount of money.”

Vrabel isn’t wrong. He also isn’t naïve.

The Patriots didn’t ask to play the Jets and Dolphins twice this season while both teams were busy unraveling. They didn’t request last-place matchups with the Raiders, Titans and Giants. They didn’t cause Joe Burrow to miss time or coaching staffs to implode. But they absolutely capitalized on it, stacking wins until a 4-13 embarrassment in 2024 became a 17-3 juggernaut, playoffs included. A +13 win swing — the largest year-over-year turnaround in NFL history — surpassing even the mythologized 1999 Rams.

And for the Patriots to pull off the upset, they would be advised to look toward “The Greatest Show on Turf” as motivation. That 1999 Rams team also was assisted by the league’s easiest schedule, collided with the top-ranked defense in the NFL in the Super Bowl, and overcame both of those things to lift the Lombardi Trophy.

But here’s where New England’s story gets complicated — and uncomfortable.

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters

The postseason, often the great equalizer, tilted their way, too. The Patriots beat three top-five defenses by yards allowed. Impressive on its face. Less pristine under a microscope.

They faced the Chargers without both starting offensive tackles, Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt — a scenario that’s occurred in just 4.6% of playoff games over the last 20 years. They beat Houston without Nico Collins and watched Dalton Schultz limp off early. Only 2.5% of playoff teams since 1970 have played without their leading receiver and tight end. Then came Denver, where quarterback Bo Nix was lost the week before, forcing Jarrett Stidham — making his first start of the season — into a bad-weather AFC Championship game. That’s happened in just 0.6% of playoff games since 1950.

That’s not just good fortune. That’s the statistical version of catching lightning in a bottle.

“Playing on the road is not easy, no matter what,” said Patriots backup quarterback Tommy DeVito when asked if his team had the easiest road to the Super Bowl in NFL history. “It’s definitely not easy winning games in the NFL, especially on the road doing it as many times as we had.”

Inside the locker room, DeVito said the response has been equal parts defiance and disbelief.

“It doesn’t matter what happened in the game, who we played or whatever the schedule says,” said DeVito, echoing Vrabel’s mantra. ”As long as that column says 1-0 after that week, it’s all that matters.”

Other players just wanted to focus on the journey.

“This is like a dream,” said Patriots center Garrett Bradbury, looking around the room.

Dreams, though, don’t block, tackle or disguise coverages. And Sunday brings the Patriots face-to-face with reality’s final form.

The Seahawks.

The Seahawks aren’t just the toughest team the Patriots have played this season. They’re the antithesis of the Patriots’ path. The NFL’s No. 1 scoring defense. Battle-tested in the league’s most punishing division. A group that has already stared down NFL MVP Matthew Stafford and the 49ers three times apiece, going 4-2 and holding them to negative EPA in half those games. 

This is the “final boss,” the one level the Patriots haven’t cleared yet.

Drake Maye has been brilliant — 72% completions, 4,394 yards, 31 touchdowns, eight interceptions. He finished one first-place vote shy of Stafford in one of the tightest MVP races in history. But in the playoffs, Maye’s EPA ranks 11th of 15 quarterbacks. The Patriots’ defense, ninth overall, hasn’t faced a consistently elite offense all season. Josh Allen was the lone top-10 EPA quarterback they saw, and even he barely cracked neutral efficiency.

Seattle brings pressure without panic, speed without recklessness. They don’t need help. They don’t arrive wounded, and they can dominate you in all three phases of the game.

The Patriots are hoping to convert that “easy road” narrative into fuel come Sunday. Vrabel insists his team isn’t flinching or running away from the challenge. 

“We’re still playing,” Vrabel said after the AFC Championship game when asked about his team’s strength of schedule and whether its success is fool’s gold. “It means we’re not on vacation.”

To the Patriots’ credit, nine Super Bowl champions have played the league’s easiest schedule and rode that straight to immortality. 

If New England wins Sunday, the schedule talk dies instantly. The greatest single-season turnaround in NFL history becomes the new narrative, and Vrabel becomes a legend. Maye a mythological figure forever. 

But if they lose, the numbers will linger. 

The Patriots beat everyone in front of them. Now they have to beat a team that isn’t supposed to move at all.

Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com