The New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs will face off in the NFL Playoffs 2016 on Saturday afternoon, with a place in the NFL Conference Championships at stake. This Divisional Round game will take place at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts with a scheduled start time of 4.35 p.m. ET. The game can be watched on TV on the CBS network or online through live stream via the link below.
The Chiefs have performed one of the greatest turnarounds in NFL history this season, spinning their season on its head after a 1-5 start. Since then they have won 10 straight games to arrive at the Divisional Round as one of the most in-form teams in the NFL.
However, today they come up against the reigning NFL champions, and despite the excellent form that the Chiefs arrive here today in, the Patriots will be the favorites to win this one.
Nevertheless the Chiefs will be as confident as they can be after an extraordinary winning streak, and especially after securing a rare postseason shutout in the Wild Card round against a talented Houston Texans team.
From start to finish last week, the Chiefs were completely dominant against a hapless Texans side. The game started with a 106 yard kickoff return touchdown, and from that moment the Chiefs never looked back to secure their first Playoffs win in 22 years.
Kansas City will be targeting Tom Brady today and will be hoping to keep him as quiet as possible. The Chiefs have been strong in defense this season, and in particular have been good at getting to the quarterback, posting 47 sacks as well as 29 takeaways.
Meanwhile, the New England Patriots have had almost an opposite season to the Chiefs. After getting the news that Tom Brady's suspension had been overturned, the Patriots started the season in overwhelmingly confident fashion, demolishing all-comers to drive to a 10-0 record.
However, since then they have gone off the boil big time, and ended up losing four of their final six games.
So form-wise this could seem like an excellent opportunity for the Chiefs to take down unquestionably one of the favorites for this year's Super Bowl.
But analysts will point out that the Patriots' downturn in form coincided with some major injuries with WR Julian Edelman, TE Rob Gronkowski, T Sebastian Vollmer, LB Dont'a Hightower and S Devin McCourty, as well as others all falling in the final two months of the season.
But a first round bye in the postseason has allowed the Patriots to rest their roster, and they will enter Saturday's big game almost back to full strength, and that could spell big trouble for the Chiefs.
If the Patriots are at their best then it will be difficult to see the Chiefs being able to get the better of them. However, if the Patriots cannot return to their best form, then it could open the door for Kansas City to continue their extraordinary season and take down arguably the favorites for this year's title.
Today's huge game between the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs has a scheduled start time of 4.35 p.m. ET and can be watched on TV on the CBS network or online through live stream by clicking here.
