Their Canton-bound quarterback could miss a quarter of the season to a suspension.
They just traded by far their best pass rusher — one of the sport’s most difficult roles to fill — for peanuts.
Their leading wide receiver just had foot surgery.
Oh, and their running game and offensive line are a mess.
So why are the Patriots ranked No. 1 in The Post’s offseason NFL power rankings?
Because Tom Brady and Bill Belichick have shown time and again — through methods both legal and illegal — that underestimating New England the past 15 years is a fool’s game.
Las Vegas certainly thinks so, considering the Patriots are listed as the favorite to win the Super Bowl by most oddsmakers even after Tom Brady’s four-game suspension was given the green light for reinstatement by a federal appeals panel last month.
“He’s not sweating it,” Broncos running back C.J. Anderson said last month when asked about the Brady and the Patriots playing with a suspension hanging over his head. “He went through it last year.”
It is not difficult to understand why, either, even if Brady ends up missing games against the Cardinals, Dolphins, Texans and Bills in September and October.
Not only are the Patriots notoriously slow starters (they went 2-2 to open their most recent Super Bowl season), which could mitigate any concern about a poor showing under Brady replacement Jimmy Garoppolo, but they also have the NFL’s most potent weapon in Rob Gronkowski.
The newest Madden cover boy is coming off another spectacular season, catching 72 passes for 1,176 yards and 11 touchdowns, and now might be downright unstoppable thanks to the acquisition in March of fellow tight end Martellus Bennett from the Bears.
A former Giant, Bennett is skilled as both a blocker and as a receiver. Combining him with Gronkowski promises to be the stuff of absolute nightmares for opposing defensive coordinators.
It is not as if the rest of the AFC East has done much to finally catch up with New England, either.
No team other than the Patriots has won the division since the George W. Bush administration, and it is tough to see that changing this year after neither the Jets, Bills nor Dolphins made the playoffs last season while New England was appearing in yet another AFC Championship game.
While the Jets’ quarterback situation is a mess with Ryan Fitzpatrick unsigned, Miami has a new coach and a quarterback in Ryan Tannehill who never even has sniffed the playoffs, and Buffalo — which hasn’t made the postseason since 1999 — has a roster virtually unchanged from the one that went 8-8 in Rex Ryan’s Bills coaching debut.
Same as it ever was. The Patriots have claimed 13 of the past 15 East titles, and anything other than making that 14 out of 16 will be a shock this fall.
That is not to say New England is without flaws.
The offensive line allowed Brady to be sacked 38 times last year and was such a disaster, especially in the Patriots’ 20-18 loss to the Broncos in the AFC title game, that coach Dante Scarnecchia had to be lured out of retirement.
Former Bills slot receiver Chris Hogan will help the receiving corps, but Danny Amendola’s injury woes are a constant concern and Julian Edelman recently had foot surgery that threatens the early part of his season.
The running game ranked 30th in the league and mustered more than 100 yards just twice the entire second half of the season and playoffs.
The secondary is young and vulnerable, as it showed most notably while giving up 342 yards to Tannehill in a pivotal Week 17 loss to the Dolphins that cost New England home-field advantage in the playoffs.
The pass rush no doubt will suffer from the offseason trade of Chandler Jones and his 12.5 sacks in 2015 to the Cardinals, in the wake of Jones’ bizarre legal incident last December. Ex-Ram Chris Long was signed to help make up for it, but he is injury-prone.
But with the rest of the East standing in place and the world-champion Broncos decimated by free agency, the title of preseason Super Bowl favorite still fits the Patriots quite well.