Mike Freeman’s 10-Point Stance: Tom Brady’s Revenge Tour Has NFL Up at Night

(Brady gonna Brady, my bad on the Vikings, and the targeting of Odell Beckham.) 

   

1. Will Tom Brady Wreck This League?

An AFC defensive assistant coach put it rather succinctly, and he’s right.

“Thanks to Roger Goodell,” said the coach, “Tom Brady is going to kill us all.” 

Not literally, of course.

“This Tom Brady scares the s–t out of me,” said another defensive assistant, this one from the NFC.

Well, it is almost Halloween.

This was the consensus of people I spoke to around the league: they think an angry Brady is going to atomize the NFL. And you know what? They’re probably right.

This is not the first time opposing coaches and players were concerned that an angry Patriots team, or player, was going to blast the competition. I’ve written repeatedly about angry Pats teams. I’ve written it before because it’s always true. And here we are again.

Us-against-them is the Patriots’ warp core. It’s their fuel. They feed off of it and no player on the team—hell, maybe in NFL history—feeds off of being disrespected like Brady.

People around football expect the Patriots to go on a run. An impressive run. One where the Patriots win seven straight or eight of their next nine. Something like that.

They think Brady wants Goodell to be forced to hand him the Lombardi Trophy following another Super Bowl win.

It’s a little early to see that happening; the Patriots’ defense is too shaky for even Brady to boost it. But I do think he will try to strike down upon NFL teams with great vengeance and furious anger, seeking revenge against those who attempted to destroy and oppose him. 

Or something like that.

What helps Brady greatly is the AFC East is still weak. Yes, the Patriots just lost to Buffalo, but it was with a rookie third-string quarterback. The Jets’ offense is horrendous (Did Ryan Fitzpatrick just throw another pick?) and Ryan Tannehill is playing so inconsistently that he may want to consider a move back to receiver.

(And there’s another Fitzpatrick pick.)

New England’s division schedule is easy. The rest of it isn’t, and this is where it gets interesting for the Brady revenge-tour narrative. There are some brutal games after the Cleveland contest this weekend, including a matchup against the Steelers, the best and deepest offense in football.

So there are challenges for Brady, but an angry Brady is a good Brady.

The NFL is nervous. It should be.

    

2. Bill Belichick May Have Outdone Even Himself

“People don’t understand how impressive [going 3-1 without Brady] was,” said one team personnel man. Opinions, of course, will vary, but this New England roster is good, not great. And to get where the Patriots are, Belichick the coach has had to carry Belichick the personnel guy. To my way of thinking, there may be only two coaches today who could do what Belichick did—Jim Harbaugh (now at Michigan) and Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin.

“There’s only a few coaches in history who could do it,” added the personnel man. “[Don] Shula, [Bill] Walsh, maybe Bill Parcells. Not many more than that.”

    

3. Meanwhile, Back in Pittsburgh

If you want to crown the Patriots, then crown their asses. But the Steelers are just as frightening. Maybe more so.

The Steelers have defensive weaknesses, but the offense is so loaded with talent everywhere that Pittsburgh still rates as the AFC team to beat. Ben Roethlisberger’s health is always a factor (like every starting quarterback), but with the addition of Le’Veon Bell, no offense in football has both the skill and depth that Pittsburgh does.

And wouldn’t another AFC title game between the Steelers and Patriots be fun as hell?

    

4. Doug Baldwin Won’t Back Down

In an interview with 60 Minutes Sports which aired …

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