{"id":402326,"date":"2026-01-11T09:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T09:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/402326\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T09:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T09:54:08","slug":"who-do-patriots-or-chargers-play-next-explaining-potential-opponents-in-2026-nfl-playoff-bracket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/402326\/","title":{"rendered":"Who do Patriots or Chargers play next? Explaining potential opponents in 2026 NFL playoff bracket"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who do Patriots or Chargers play next? Explaining potential opponents in 2026 NFL playoff bracket<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 2026 NFL playoffs will feature plenty of new faces looking to make deep postseason runs.<\/p>\n

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The New England Patriots<\/a> enjoyed a resurgent season, winning the AFC East at 14-3 and earning the No. 2 overall seed behind MVP candidate Drake Maye. Now, Maye will play in his first playoff game against a worthy opponent.<\/p>\n

On the other side, the Los Angeles Chargers<\/a> are still searching for their first playoff win with Justin Herbert at quarterback. Herbert is 0-2 in the postseason so far and now must travel to New England in hopes of picking up his first playoff victory.<\/p>\n

Whoever wins this game will earn a chance to continue its playoff run in the divisional round. Additionally, the winner will help determine how the AFC bracket shapes up moving forward.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s a breakdown of which teams the Patriots or Chargers would play with a win.<\/p>\n

MORE 2026 NFL PLAYOFFS:<\/p>\n

Who will the Patriots or Chargers play next?<\/p>\n

Since the NFL playoffs are re-seeded after the first round, the Patriots and Chargers would have different paths if they win.<\/p>\n

For New England, the Patriots would play the No. 3-seed Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a> if Jacksonville defeats the Buffalo Bills<\/a> on Sunday. However, if the Bills win that game, then New England would play the winner of the Houston Texans<\/a>–Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> game on Monday night. A Patriots win also means they would host the divisional-round game, regardless of who they play.<\/p>\n

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As the No. 7 seed, the Chargers have a much simpler path. A Los Angeles win would mean the Chargers play the No. 1-seed Denver Broncos<\/a> in the divisional, making it three times that the two teams played this season.<\/p>\n

NFL playoff bracket 2026\"NFL<\/p>\n

NFL playoffs bracket 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who do Patriots or Chargers play next? Explaining potential opponents in 2026 NFL playoff bracket originally appeared on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[1748,49,48,1743,2221,1725,2219,1522,2210,19260,1718,514,169608,169609,82],"class_list":["post-402326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-denver-broncos","tag-drake-maye","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-justin-herbert","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-new-england","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-patriots-win","tag-playoff-game","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}