They certainly weren't expected to win with quarterback Tom Brady playing as he did, at least from a statistical perspective, throwing two interceptions and earning a passer rating of 57.5.
"It's a pretty mentally tough team," said Brady after the win, according to Patriots.com. "There's really some resiliency, we've shown that all season. Even in the games we've lost, the three games we lost, we fought until the end. We're always going to fight to the end. It's great to be a part of a team like this."
There's no statistic for mentally tough, or fighting to the end. And this game proved it.
Tom Brady didn't carry the offense, got outdueled by Joe Flacco, and the Patriots won the game.
Brady had a passer rating of 57.5. For a team that relies on its quarterback to win, that's scary.
Joe Flacco finished with a 95.4. He plays on a team that utilizes him as an aid to victories, not as the primary figure.
And if anyone had told you those numbers before the game, and that the Patriots would win, would you believe them?
Well, that's exactly what happened. And Brady would be the first to tell you that he should take no responsibility for the win.
"Well, I sucked pretty bad today, but our defense saved us," said Brady. "And I'm going to try and go out and do a better job in a couples weeks, but I'm proud of this team, my teammates."
Sucked is a good word for it; it was his worst performance of the season in terms of passer rating.
Joe Flacco had his way with the Patriots defense to the tune of a 95.4 passer rating, but the Patriots were able to do a few things necessary to the win.
The Patriots defense bottled up Ray Rice
It was called one of the biggest keys to victory by more than one Patriots analyst, and it's no secret how important it was to the win today.
The Patriots had given up 639 yards and 5.7 yards per carry in the final four regular season games, and despite giving up 144 yards on the ground against the Broncos, they improved to allow just 3.6 yards per carry.
Although the Ravens rush attack is different from the Broncos in immeasurable ways, they have one thing in common: they were both shut down by the Patriots in the playoffs. Rice himself picked up just 67 yards on 21 carries, for 3.2 YPA average, and the Ravens team rushed for 116 yards on 31 carries for 3.7 YPA.
The emergence of the Patriots defense is similar to what the Colts' Super Bowl XLI unit was able to do. That unit ranked dead last against the run during the regular season, but found a way to buckle down in the postseason.
The Patriots made the biggest plays
The Patriots defense has not been the whipping boy it was in the regular season. They held the Ravens just 1-for-4 (25 percent) in the red zone.
Were the Patriots clutch all the time? The Ravens success rate of 52 percent on third down would certainly suggest not, but they made enough key plays to make up for it.
They did not, however, get lucky. And as much as the Ravens did to hand the Patriots the game, the Patriots did the same.
Think about this: Brady and Danny Woodhead might have done enough to hand the Ravens the game, had they not shot themselves in the foot. It went both ways in this one.
But in the end, the Ravens made the key mistakes with six penalties against just one by New England, including two huge gaffes in the final 22 seconds -- a dropped touchdown pass by Lee Evans and a missed chip shot field goal by Billy Cundiff.
Whether the Patriots win their fourth Super Bowl in the past 11 years will hinge on their ability to not only continue to make the big plays, but also on their ability to not make the big mistakes.
