The New England Patriots’ 2020 season doesn’t make any sense.
And that’s especially strange for Bill Belichick, who had a habit of putting together tidy seasons with quarterback Tom Brady. The Patriots generally won games where they were favored and lost to the best teams in the NFL, if at all (see: 2007). Maybe that’s an oversimplification. But in a chaotic, any-given-Sunday NFL, Belichick’s Patriots were generally the only thing you could count on.
In 2020, that’s no longer the story. They’re just like everybody else. Cam Newton and Belichick have been erratic. They lose to bad teams and they beat the good ones, sometimes. So it was fitting — though no less stunning — that the Patriots beat the Arizona Cardinals, 20-17, with a last-minute field goal from Nick Folk on Sunday in Week 12.
Let’s get to the winners and losers.
