The hype train for Green Bay Packers at New England Patriots is chugging along at full speed. Hell, it may even have gone off the tracks. We’re talking about a regular season game here, people. A regular season game. That is not lost on Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
Brady put the brakes on the hype train a bit on Thursday night.
“I’m excited for the game,” Brady told Jim Gray. “There’s high stakes for both teams. I don’t want to make it anything more than it is. This isn’t the Super Bowl. This isn’t a playoff game. If you lose, the season isn’t over, but all these games are important. We’re going against a team that [has] very little margin of error, against a quarterback who can come back and score points in seconds, so I’m excited to try to play our best against a great team.”
Sure, I get why everyone is so excited. It’s Tom Brady vs. Aaron Rodgers. The last time they met was 2014. You don’t get to see the two best quarterbacks in the game square off very often.
Got all that.
It’s still the middle of the season, though. There’s still plenty of football to play. A lot can happen.
The Packers probably need a win more than the Patriots this week. The Patriots are 6-2, two games up on the Dolphins in the AFC East. They’re going to run away with that division just like they always do. The Packers are 3-3-1. They’re a game behind the Bears and Vikings in the win column in the NFC North.
The Packers are also 0-3 on the road. They’ve got Seattle and Minnesota on the road coming up in the next three weeks.
Things could get ugly for the Packers. They could get ugly quickly.
A win against the Patriots on the road would put the Packers back on the upswing. A loss and it might be the beginning of the end. And I can tell you this. The Packers won’t have the home field advantage in Foxboro like they did in Los Angeles last week.
This will be the biggest road test of the season.