The New England Patriots are already facing an uphill battle entering the 2024 NFL season, at least as far as their general perception is concerned. Frankly, coming off a 4-13 season and with a major rebuild underway, expectations are not particularly high for the team of first-year head coach Jerod Mayo.

That is one part of the reason why New England is the biggest underdog in the NFL in Week 1, and why a loss against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday would be anything but surprising. Of course, the Patriots won’t go down without a fight either.

In fact, despite being in the first year of a rebuild, they hope to play spoilers starting as early as the regular season opener in Cincinnati.

“I would definitely say there’s a different approach [compared to] previous years, of it being no one’s counting on us,” cornerback Jonathan Jones said in the locker room on Wednesday.

“We get to kind of spoil everyone’s hopes and dreams as the year goes on. And hopefully, by the end of the year, teams are looking at us and people are starting to pick us to win.”

The Patriots’ first attempt at playing spoilers will come against a team that is itself coming off an underwhelming season. Despite going 9-8, the Bengals failed to qualify for the playoffs for the first time in three years and are now looking to get back on track.

In that sense, they are in a similar boat as New England. But while the Bengals have bigger goals in mind — they hope to return to the status of Super Bowl contender — the Patriots are taking one step at a time in this early stage of their rebuild, starting center and team captain David Andrews explained.

“I’m excited. It’s the first one,” Andrews said about the upcoming game. “Obviously, you want to go out there and have a good performance. But it’s just a one-week season. Each week, you try to get better. Win, lose, draw, you have to flush that week and move on to the next.”

Nonetheless, the Patriots have some clear goals against the Bengals and the rest of their schedule. Even with the odds not in their favor, they want to win.

“The results are the results, and it comes down to wins and losses,” said head coach Jerod Mayo. “We’re going to try to win every game, and I’m going to try to do everything I can to get us to that point.”