Father and son are seeing similar things with the Patriots — even if they have reached different conclusions.

“They are a team that’s not functioning at a high level and we have not seen that in a long time,” Chris Simms, an analyst for NBC’s “Football Night in America,” said of the Patriots, who face the Titans on Saturday night (8 PM, CBS) in a wild-card matchup.

“It’s really since Brady’s first year since coming back from that 2008 ACL tear that we’ve seen them like this. With him being 42, he’s still really good, but he’s at the point of his career where he needs a little help. They’ve had offensive line issues, and he doesn’t have a great cast of characters to throw to right now.”

The Patriots were not supposed to be here this weekend. They were supposed to be an afterthought for the first weekend of the playoffs, sitting at home waiting for a divisional round opponent. Instead, their last-minute, upset loss at home to the Dolphins in Week 17 cost them the AFC’s No. 2 seed and sets up a treacherous road out of the AFC for the defending Super Bowl champs.

Phil Simms, who was followed by Chris first into football, then broadcasting, sees those offensive issues and thinks the Patriots have done about as well as they could with the personnel they have. But is it now time to worry about the defense? The unit that carried the Patriots to 12 wins showed some new cracks as the season wore on and particularly in that Miami defeat.

Phil called the Patriots’ defense “extremely creative” with “next-level thinking” because of its unique dependency on the linebackers and secondary to carry it.

“The Dolphins passed the ball so well against that secondary of the Patriots,” said Phil Simms, now finishing his third year as part of CBS’ studio show, “NFL Today,” after two decades in the booth.

“The one thing I’ve maintained all year is that the Patriots can count on the secondary to let the defense gamble when they want to because they can cover. I still think they have the best secondary in the NFL, but overall that was a bit alarming to see Miami do that.”

The Patriots have been imperfect champions before, though. The most likely challengers in their AFC path if they get past the Titans — the Chiefs and Ravens — have more talent than the Patriots, and both appear to be playing their best football of the season.

Whether that’s enough to crack the Patriots’ mystique is a matter of debate.

“The Patriots have fought a lot of these battles and have succeeded a lot,” Phil said of Bill Belichick’s six-time Super Bowl champions. “And they are a team that can physically play hard, but the big thing is they are a very disciplined football team and they push the limits on what they expect their players to learn.

“Mentally, they can just grind out plays, clear the mind, play and do that. I do not underestimate that at all when they stay in games when you think they are getting outplayed. Next thing you know they are winning.”

Chris is aware of this. He was an NFL quarterback for seven seasons and an offensive assistant for the Patriots in 2012 before turning fully to broadcasting. But as of midweek, he was uncertain if he was even going to pick the Patriots to get past Ryan Tannehill — “throwing the football as good as anyone in the NFL” — and the Titans.

“I’d be stunned, if they are still standing around a month from now,” said Chris, who will be part of NBC’s coverage on Sunday before and after the Eagles-Seahawks showdown.

“I won’t be shocked if they lose this weekend. It’s just odd to go into January and be like, ‘Whoa, they have some areas to work on and even if they work on them it’s not about being great. It’s just about being good.’ That’s where it’s different. New England has gotten better on offense the past few weeks, but it’s not going to be like they are going to turn it on and go to a different level now.”