I don't think a team has ever had an easier path to the SB in the salary cap era than New England. At least they might have to work a little to win another ring. Not really Darth Bill's fault that the entire rest of the AFC sucks balls, though.
On the Packers front, Ted needs to go. This season was doomed before the first pre season game started. Too many special projects/undrafted free agents on the Defense that Ted the Ghost lets stick around. We should also probably trade Mathews or restructure his contract. Paying 20 Million the next two years for a guy who has racked up five sacks all season and is habitually injured is not sound. Peppers did more than Mathews this year. If Rodgers is ever going to get another ring, we need a GM who will go out and spend some money on DBs, or frankly ANYONE. This system of trading high picks for two to three late rounders has resulted in getting blown out in the playoffs year after year. Also, there is a fucking reason we have been injury magnets since McFatass took over and they need to figure it out.
We were going to get blown out in ATL if we had an off day. Everyone knew that. But McFatty insisting on not running at all against a D that was weak to the run and constantly going for home run balls doomed us. Our game plan should have revolved around keeping Atlanta's Offense on the sidelines as much as possible, but instead we aired it out and Atlanta came out on fire and never stopped. Not that we would have won, either way, but its obvious McFatty had a faulty plan and the game got away from us almost instantly. This is the biggest blowout we have eaten since the Aikmen Favre era debacles, but more critically this one was actually expected by us which means the culture of the front office is basically now ok with coming up short. That is the reason they all need to go, while we still have a HoF caliber QB, because we sure as shit are not getting a third one in a row.