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The last time the Patriots were in a Super Bowl (2015, if you can remember that far back), they weren't just focusing on the reigning champion Seahawks. They were also waging a war against the NFL, trying to defend themselves from the scandal that became known as Deflategate.

This time around, the Patriots have nothing to do except prepare for the Falcons. And by the sound of it, Patriots coach Bill Belichick is more than happy to devote all of his time to that task.

When he was asked by WEEI on Monday to compare the 2015 Super Bowl to this season's title game, Belichick pointed out that he isn't wasting time with science experiments this year.

"Well, yeah, there has been certainly a lot more concentration on football and Atlanta and the game, and not doing the science experiments that we did then," Belichick said, via MassLive."I learned a lot from Mona Lisa Vito ..."

That last part is in reference to what he said two years ago, when the Patriots were running their own experiments in an attempt to figure out how those footballs could've been deflated.

"I'm embarrassed to talk about the amount of time I've put into this relative to the other important challenge in front of us," Belichick said at the time. "I'm not a scientist, I'm not an expert in footballs, I'm not an expert in football measurements, I'm just telling you what I know. I would not say that I'm Mona Lisa Vito of the football world as she was in the car expertise area."

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Anyway, Belichick will need all the time he can get to figure out a way to stop the Falcons' offense, which averaged 33.8 points in the regular season and features the likely MVP in Matt Ryan, who has thrown seven touchdowns and zero interceptions this postseason.

"But, no, this is really a two-week preparation," Belichick said. "It's something that we definitely need because of our unfamiliarity with the Falcons, so having the extra time and trying to prepare our players as well as possible for them to spend time learning a very good football team, a great football team, and all the things that they do well, to give [our players] the opportunity to be able to digest and analyze, it's been good."

And really, that's the scary part. Two years ago, a highly distracted Belichick put together a game plan to beat the Legion of Boom. This year, he gets two full weeks to focus on nothing but stopping the Falcons.

That right there is why I (along with "Madden 17") am taking the Patriots in this game.