The 2020 NFL regular season is now down to just four weeks, which means the playoffs begin now for some teams. The New England Patriots are one of those teams as they are 6-6 and need to keep winning in order to secure a playoff spot. Tonight, the Patriots are facing the Los Angeles Rams, who are 8-4 this season and battling the Seattle Seahawks for first place in the NFC West. Week 14 on Thursday Night Football will start at 8:20 p.m. on Fox and the NFL Network. It can also be streamed on Amazon Prime Video and the Yahoo Sports app.
The Patriots have turned things around after getting off to a slow start. After going 3-5 in the first half of the season, New England has won three of their last four games including a 45-0 drubbing of the Los Angeles Chargers last week. But as well as the team is playing right now, they know they are going to have their hands full tonight as they are taking on one of the best teams in the NFC on a short week.
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“It’s always a little bit more challenging with a team you don’t know as well, but I mean, it’s the same for them, so I don’t think there’s any advantage there,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said to reporters earlier this week. “But, it’s different than playing a division team that you know better. Yeah, there’s some carryover offensively from the Rams. Defensively, they’ve changed coordinators from Wade [Phillips] to [Brandon] Staley and changed special teams coordinators from [John] Fassel to [John] Bonamego. So, I’d say there’s some pretty significant changes there in two of the phases.”
The Rams are similar to the Patriots as they have also won three of their last four games. The defense has been a big reason for the Rams’ success as defensive lineman Aaron Donald has 11 sacks through 12 games. Linebacker Leonard Floyd has also been a big part of the team’s defensive production, recording seven sacks and nine tackles for loss.
“It’s old school football, you know, it’s going be a physical game, a lot of downhill things,” Donald said when talking about the Patriots. “A lot of things you got to get ready for, being stout in the run, because they’re definitely strong at that. So, the best way to put it is it’s just like old school football again.”
