It was a cloudy, cold day, and snow had started to fall and blow around in the wind at Gillette Stadium.

No, not Sunday, but a year ago today – Jan. 3, 2021. That’s when the New England Patriots wrapped up their season with a win over the hapless New York Jets. There were no fans at Gillette Stadium, and the traffic in the area would have never told you that a game was being played.

The Patriots were done, finishing 7-9, Cam Newton was besieged by questions about his future, and the playoffs were going to be held for the first time in 13 seasons without New England as a participant.

Remember? It seems ages ago, so much different than Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022, when a Gillette crowd of over 60,000, some of them disguised as blue seats due to the vastly inferior opponent, celebrated a 50-10 rout of the Jacksonville Jaguars. And afterward, the Patriot players were celebrating the fact they were back in the playoffs, thanks to Miami losing at Tennessee.

They were obviously schooled as to how to answer the playoff question, as most of the veterans downplayed it, but also most couldn’t hide their joy at the idea. For some, it was a new feeling.

“Any sport you play you want to play for a championship, a playoff spot,” said Pats rookie Mac Jones, who is only the fifth QB to take a team to the postseason in his first year, and the other four are in the Hall of Fame. “I realize what we’re playing for.”

Jones certainly isn’t the entire difference between this year and last, but he’s certainly part of it. Even Patriots coach Bill Belichick had to acknowledge the team’s accomplishment, and you wonder if it’s not something very satisfying to him as it’s his first playoff berth as a Patriots head coach and only second in his career as an NFL head coach, period, without a guy named Tom Brady.

“Excited to be back in the playoffs,” Belichick said, “but big game (at Miami) coming up this week, take care of that. But feel like we made some progress today, but we’ve still got a long way to go here.”

No doubt. The Jags are not only a bad football team, but they were missing as many as 27 roster players the last couple of weeks due to COVID, replaced by practices squad players, etc. They had to elevate as many as nine from the practice squad for this game. That, coupled with the horrendous coaching they received from the since-fired Urban Meyer, made a bad team horrendous.

So don’t take too much from this one. What to take is how different this Patriot team is, how different circumstances are 365 days later.

“We all kind of came in here with goals and aspirations to make it to the postseason,” Patriots receiver Jakobi Meyers said. “It was really a doubt of ourselves or, “hopefully we’ll see if we can make it later’. Even when we were losing, we had a feeling that we were a good team and we had goals to reach.”

“I mean, it’s a great spot for us,” Patriots defensive back J.C. Jackson said, after a game in which he had yet another interception. “We know what we have to do. I’m ready to get back to work this week.”

That’s the thing. There can be all sorts of doubt about this team after it lost two straight games to two good teams, just like there was all sorts of high expectations after it won seven in a row.

But the plain fact is, the Patriots will be working not only next week for their regular season finale, but also that following week for a playoff game, whether it be here at Gillette in two weeks (only if they win and Buffalo loses to the Jets) or at a destination unknown.

Afterward, running back Damien Harris was talking about his customary interaction with the fans after he scored two TDs Sunday. He talked about remembering how he was as an 8-year-old, craving to be a football player.

“…Any opportunity that I get to give bac to the fans who make what we do so fun, it’s a special moment,” he said. “So if I can just give somebody at touchdown ball, it’s a great feeling.”

The pandemic is still raging, but Harris had no fans to give a ball to in 2020. And no playoffs to prepare for.

Like they say, what a difference a year makes.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.