The Patriots are the best team in the NFL, and Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are 10 weeks away from earning their fourth Super Bowl rings.
That’s what I was thinking as I watched the 34-9 beatdown the Patriots put up on a previously pretty good Lions team on Sunday. This New England team has the best offense in the NFL, an offense that, for the last seven games, hasn’t been far off from the insanely great offense of the 16-0 Patriots team in 2007.
Seven games. That’s how many the Patriots have played since that ugly meltdown against the Chiefs, the 41-14 loss in Kansas City that had people claiming Tom Brady was washed up and the New England dynasty was done. Here’s all the Patriots have done in the seven games since then:
— For starters, they’ve won seven straight games. That alone is remarkable in this NFL season, when it seems like every other week the team that we’re sure is on top of the league gets knocked off its perch. No other team is currently on a win streak of more than three games. Seven in a row in today’s NFL is extraordinarily hard to do.
— And they’re not just winning. They’re dominating. Six of the Patriots’ seven wins during their current streak are by margins of 15 points or more. The Patriots have outscored their opponents by a total score of 277-137. That’s an average score of 40-20. A three-touchdown victory is the norm.
— Tom Brady has multiple touchdown passes in each of the last seven games. He’s thrown 22 scores and only four interceptions during this winning streak.
— Rob Gronkowski has gotten back to being Gronk, which means he’s emerged as a matchup nightmare, just like he always is when he’s actually healthy enough to play like himself. But perhaps more importantly, Brady has been spreading the ball around to a whole lot of different receivers. Those 22 touchdown passes in the last seven games include six to Gronk, six to Timothy Wright, four to Brandon LaFell, three to Shane Vereen, one to Danny Amendola, one to Brian Tyms and one to Julian Edelman.
— The Patriots can run the ball any way they want. LeGarrette Blount was signed last week, had a couple days of practice, and carried 12 times for 78 yards and two touchdowns against the Lions yesterday. That came a week after newcomer Jonas Gray ran for 201 yards and four touchdowns in a win over the Colts. When the Patriots started this streak, it was Stevan Ridley who had 113 rushing yards in a win over the Bengals. Shane Vereen has also taken a couple turns as the Patriots’ top rusher.
The Patriots’ defense isn’t great, but it’s good enough, and I wouldn’t bet against Belichick having his defense playing its best football in January. Belichick is just so good at what he does. If he wins his fourth Super Bowl ring, there will be a case that he’s the best coach in NFL history. And in turning this team around like he has over the last seven weeks, Belichick may be doing his best coaching job yet.
New England was the best team in the NFL on Sunday. Here are my other thoughts:
Here’s why people love Bruce Arians. ESPN aired a segment Sunday morning called “My Best Day,” in which NFL players and coaches talked about the best day of their lives. Arians chose the day that he was able to relinquish his job as the Colts’ interim head coach because his boss, Chuck Pagano, had recovered from cancer treatments and was ready to take over again. That’s the kind of man Arians is: He was in the midst of a very successful year in which he finally got to live his dream as an NFL head coach, and the day that he stepped aside to give the head-coaching job back to Pagano is the day he chose as the best of his life, because he cares so deeply about Pagano as a person that Pagano’s health means far more to him than his own personal achievements. I watched that segment and I wanted to run through a brick wall for Arians. I can’t imagine what it’s like to play for him. The Cardinals lost on Sunday, but Arians remains the leading candidate for the coach of the year.
Jim Caldwell needs to get more aggressive. As the Lions fell behind the Patriots early on Sunday, Caldwell sent the punt or field goal teams onto the field on a fourth-and-6, a fourth-and-goal from the 2, a fourth-and-3 and a fourth-and-1. Later, Caldwell wasted a timeout on fourth-and-14 because he couldn’t make a decision about whether to go for it or kick a field goal. (The Lions kicked after the timeout.) I don’t know how many opportunities Caldwell thought he was going to get, but if you want to win at New England, you’re going to need to take some chances. Caldwell wouldn’t, and his team paid for it.
Teddy’s not ready. Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater may one day become a very good NFL quarterback, but he’s not there yet. Sunday’s loss to the Packers showed why Bridgewater would still be on the sideline if Matt Cassel hadn’t suffered a season-ending injury. Bridgewater’s stats don’t look terrible — he completed 21 of 37 passes for 210 yards, with two touchdowns and one interception — but he missed open receivers several times early in the game, and that cost the Vikings the game. On a day when Minnesota’s defense played well enough to win, Bridgewater couldn’t deliver.
Welcome back, Josh Gordon. In his first game of the season after serving a substance-abuse suspension, Gordon was the Browns’ best player on Sunday. Gordon, who led the NFL with an average of 117.6 receiving yards per game last year, caught eight passes for 120 yards to lead Cleveland to a win at Atlanta. Gordon is picking up right where he left off, and the Browns have a good chance to make the playoffs for the first time since 2002.
Your weekly reminder that the NFC South is terrible. The Falcons are 4-7, and they’ll be in first place if the Ravens beat the Saints tonight. The Falcons still haven’t beaten a single team from outside their division: They’re 4-0 against their fellow NFC South teams and they’re 0-7 against the rest of the NFL after yesterday’s loss to the Browns. It’s entirely possible that a five-win team could win the NFC South.
Think Mark Sanchez likes playing for Chip Kelly? Sanchez completed 30 of 43 passes for 307 yards in the Eagles’ 43-24 win over the Titans on Sunday. Sanchez never even had two straight 300-yard games in his 68 career starts with the Jets, but he now has three straight 300-yard games after his first three starts with the Eagles.
What Dominic Raiola did was bush league. Raiola, the Lions’ center, admitted that he took a shot at the knees of Patriots defensive tackle Zach Moore because he didn’t like the Patriots running up the score. The NFL should discipline Raiola and send a message that such cheap shots are unacceptable. The Patriots are running it up on everyone because they’re better than everyone. They shouldn’t have to take cheap shots just because they’re winning big.