The New England Patriots won again in Week 12. They are now 10-1 in 2019.

Truthfully, there is not much to bash the Patriots for. They have the best defense in the NFL. Sure, Tom Brady hasn't been his usually self. But did you hear who I am talking about? Brady is still Brady and that's someone you can trust to win you games, especially in the playoffs.

So what is there to be thankful for entering Thanksgiving? The problem is, what isn't there to be thankful for when it comes to the Patriots. Listing things for them is simply too easy.

I could be lazy and say Bill Belichick and Brady. Those are the two most obvious things to point out when talking about this. Arguably the best coach and the best quarterback of all-time. However, that's too easy, so let's switch it up a little bit and keep those two out of the proceedings.

With that in mind, here are two other things the Patriots should be thankful for entering Thanksgiving Day.

The Rest of the AFC East

Ryan Fitzpatrick, Dolphins
ClutchPoints

I know I will get a lot of complaints from Patriots fans for this one, but we need to be realistic here. The AFC East outside of New England would is the worst division in football.

The only other team with a good record are the Buffalo Bills, and they've feasted on bad teams.

So far, Buffalo has beat the Miami Dolphins (twice) and the New York Jets. The two worst teams in their division. That's three of their eight wins, meaning they are 5-2 outside of their division (they are 8-3 but have a loss to the Patriots).

Okay, so that's really good still. But they've beaten the winless Cincinnati Bengals, the two-win New York Giants and the two-win Washington Redskins. There's three of their remaining five wins.

The other two wins were against the Denver Broncos (3-8) and the Tennessee Titans (6-5). That Titans win is the only win over a team with a winning record they have all year, and when they faced off with them they were struggling with Marcus Mariota at quarterback still.

Meanwhile, their three losses are to the Patriots, as well as the Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles, two sub-.500 teams.

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Not exactly much competition. Meanwhile, I don't need to explain the Jets and Dolphins, they are both just bad (although the Jets are figuring things out a little bit).

So the Patriots haven't really had any competition in the division. That doesn't mean they aren't still the best team in the NFL, but they have had a lot of cake-walk wins.

Defense

Stephon Gilmore

I already touched on this earlier. The Patriots have the best defense in the NFL.

Their 256.4 total yards allowed per game is second-best in the league. Meanwhile, their 10.6 points allowed is the best. They have the fourth-most sacks (37) and the most takeaways (29) and their 50.5 passer rating against is by far the lowest in the NFL.

Oh, and they might have the best cornerback in football in Stephon Gilmore.

The Patriots have allowed nine touchdowns all year. That means they are averaging less than one touchdown per game. Simply put, you aren't going to lose games if you don't let the other team in the end zone.

New England has a ton of things they could be thankful for right now, but the defense has to top the list. It's a cheat code at this point.