The Drive

After more than a year of buildup and hype, the Patriots will finally face Aaron Rodgers in a Jets uniform.

The old guard has almost entirely changed out. The voices I grew up with and so many of you welcomed into your lives on a nightly and weekly basis, the voices who described the greatest golden age a sports town has ever experienced, are now memories like those teams they called.

As always seems to be the case, the first two weeks of the NFL season - which conclude tonight on The Ticket with Falcons-Eagles Monday Night Football - have been filled with wild and whacky results.

We spent all off-season hearing about how the Buffalo Bills window was closing, that Josh Allen lost his weapons, and that the team that has won the division every year since Tom Brady left town was ready to tumble from their perch. Of course, it was another spring and summer filled with endless Jets hype, the team expected to take over the East and the AFC for that matter on their rightful march

Fresh off a sparkling 18-2 opening week effort, Ernie Clark is back and riding a .900 winning percentage into this week's slate.

Ninety nine percent of the time the Drive Poll is based in sports. Today is not part of that 99%.

It's a stalemate that everyone has been saying will get done, but here we are, one week from opening camp and still without a deal.

As of today, the Twins are 76-68. If they go .500 the rest of the way, that gets them to 85 wins. However, the Twins are just 6-15 in their last 21 games. There are no free wins to be found on Boston's schedule the rest of the way. For them to reach 85 wins, they would have to go 12-6 down the stretch.

One thing is for certain based on yesterday's results around the league. For everyone that put money on the Patriots owning the No. 1 draft pick after this year, that bet is already blown. They're nowhere near the dumpster fires that are burning in New York or Carolina, and if they can find a way to replicate yesterday's game script, the Pats have a shot at keeping their share of games close.

One thing potentially working in New England's favor is that the Bengals, during Joe Burrow's first four years, have been notoriously slow starters out of the gate.