Cam Newton has been putting his name in the news cycle this week with comments he’s made about the New England Patriots. It started with a simple declaration that this year’s Patriots team was “fool’s gold.” Drake Maye was asked about the former Patriots quarterback’s remarks during a WEEI radio spot earlier this week. Maye responded with a now-viral claim that he had not heard Newton’s criticism and wouldn’t know where to find Newton on the air. While Newton’s “First Take” coworkers accused Maye of being a liar, he doubled down on the fool’s gold remarks. “If you keep playing sorry scrubs, then you’re going to have this falsetto of a mentality going into the playoffs, and it has one-and-done written all over it,” Newton said. “Give me the Indianapolis Colts.” Story continues below advertisement The only problem for Newton, other than the fact that the 8-2 Colts rank just one spot above New England in the strength of victory index, is that the numbers don’t seem to support this claim. Of the last ten Super Bowl champions, only two have had the best strength of victory among the playoff teams in their conference. One was the 2018 Patriots, and the other was the 2015 Denver Broncos team that beat Newton in his only Super Bowl appearance. In fact, as Michael Hurley of NBC Sports Boston pointed out, there are more instances of a lower SOV indicating playoff success. Story continues below advertisement In two of the Patriots’ three Super Bowl losses this century, they were bested by the NFC team that boasted the lowest SOV in the conference. While criticism of the Patriots’ strength of schedule is entirely fair, correlating hard regular-season matchups to playoff success does not hold up.