There’s not much new to say about a New England Patriots team in the Divisional Round of the playoffs.

Bill Belichick’s squad has made it this far in the playoffs at least, the past four years and nine of the past 11 seasons. It’ll be a familiar looking squad as well, as a lot of the featured players will be in their fourth go ‘round come Saturday.

Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, Dont’a Hightower, a good chunk of both the offensive and defensive lines, and of course Tom Brady have been around for all or most of the past four years.

So what makes this team better? Why are they the favourites in the AFC, better than any of the four previous editions of the team?

On offence, a lot of it starts with Gronk. The 25-year-old freak of nature has reclaimed his crown amongst tight ends after injuries derailed his last two seasons and opened the door for Jimmy Graham and Julius Thomas to receive all the accolades. While it wasn’t quite the all-time season he put up as a sophomore, Gronkowski finished first in just about every pass catching category for tight ends with 82 receptions for 1,124 yards and 12 Gronk-smashes.

The emergence of Edelman has helped the Patriots offence the past couple years as well. Edelman went from an intriguing option the first four years of his career to pretty much Wes Welker the past two. Like Gronkowski, Edelman didn’t quite hit his career peaks this season, but finished with a very impressive 92 receptions for 972 yards.

And then of course there’s Brady. While other sure-fire Hall of Famers of a certain age are having questions about their game deteriorating asked, Brady keeps humming along to the tune of, again, MVP consideration.

Maybe it’s just a case of Brady getting his 2014 slump out of the way early. After struggling through a mediocre September, Brady silenced critics with a massive year the rest of the way. Brady finished with 4,109 passing yards and 33 touchdowns to just nine interceptions. It’s not his best season statistically but Brady led New England to home field advantage throughout the playoffs and is widely considered a top MVP candidate alongside Aaron Rodgers and JJ Watt.

All told the Patriots finished 11th in the league in offensive yards with 365 per game but fourth in points scored with more than 29 per game. Another point for the “some things never change with the Patriots” department is the team’s shaky run game. New England finished 18th in the league running the ball and will rely on some combination of Jonas Gray, Shane Vereen, and Brandon Bolden to help take pressure off Brady and the passing game.

The defence is a cast of familiar faces as well, save for a big addition in the secondary. Richard Sherman has taken any and all headlines given to cornerbacks in today’s NFL, but Darrelle Revis is still, say, Top Two in the league at his position.

But even with Revis the team only finished middle of the pack against the pass, giving up more than 239 yards per game. New England has been better against the run and finished with the 13th ranked defence in terms of yards allowed but eighth in points given up.

Making the Divisional Round is nothing new for the Patriots and past teams have advanced even farther into the playoffs more often than not in recent years. This team is generally considered to be even better than previous editions, so it would be an upset indeed if New England fell flat against the Baltimore Ravens – in Foxborough no less – come Saturday.