Week 4 begins tomorrow, and everyone’s favorite team to hate, the New England Patriots, head into their bye week sporting a perfect 3-0 record. Not only have they managed to look good in the process of wins over Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Jacksonville, they’ve managed to enrage both Roger Goodell and both serious & casual sports fans alike in the process. As an unabashed Patriots fan myself, I obviously consider this a strong positive. With the bulk of their schedule still ahead of them, let’s take a minute to both reflect on the positives and negatives of their first games, and look ahead to keys for success to the rest of the season.

2015 SEASON POSITIVES

We’ll start with the NFL’s current most polarizing figure… Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, Jr.

Brady has been the engine behind New England’s success, as he always has been, but his season so far has been extremely, extremely impressive to date. I really hate the “vengeance” narrative that many writers have decided to use in the wake of Brady’s Ballghazi victory, but at the same time, you can’t help but imagine he’s reasonably pleased with how the season has gone so far.

In three games, Brady’s thrown nine touchdowns and zero interceptions for 1112 yards and a 72.2% completion percentage. Throw in a QBR of 119.6 over these 3 games as well and you can see that he’s been on fire to start the year. Love him or despise him, Tom Brady has been a shining light for his generation of quarterbacks as so many others have either gotten injured or played poorly to start the year. With Roethlisberger, Romo and Brees all injured and Peyton Manning’s robotic body finally breaking down, Tom Brady is a fun sight to see still playing at peak capacity at age 38.

Rob Gronkowski has also had a terrific start to the year; as one of Tom Brady’s favorite targets, he’s caught 16 balls for 308 yards and 4 touchdowns. If there’s any doubt he’s the best tight end in the NFL right now, there shouldn’t be – he’s averaging 102.7 yards and 1.3 touchdowns a game this season, which projects to 1643.2 yards and 20.8 touchdowns. Now, those numbers are of course bound to drop off eventually, but Gronk still remains essentially unstoppable, particularly in red zone situations.

2015 SEASON IMPROVEMENTS

There’s not a huge amount of tweaking that Bill Belichick needs to do right now for this team, but the defense, while still good, is not nearly as good as it was last year, and is most certainly playing second fiddle to the high-octane offense. The Patriots did address this in a minor way this week, releasing RB Travaris Cadet to make room for LB John Bostic, whom they acquired in a trade from the Chicago Bears for a conditional pick. While New England has some strong pass rushers in Dont’a Hightower, Jamie Collins, and Chandler Jones, their defense against the run could still use some improvement; while their highest total conceded was 170 yards to the Bills in Week 2, they did also concede 127 on 21 carries to Steelers backup DeAngelo Williams. The secondary, too, has given up a lot of yardage, no doubt hurt by the dual loss of Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner, but they did also record 3 picks on Tyrod Taylor and another on Blake Bortles. Essentially, the Patriots’ game plan remains as it has been in so many of their previous seasons – the defense does its best to help out while the offense does the majority of the heavy lifting.

LOOKING AHEAD FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON

Coming off the bye week, I had been initially concerned about the matchup in Arlington versus the Dallas Cowboys, but admittedly, I am far less nervous now that A) one of either Brandon Weeden or Matt Cassel will be starting for the Cowboys, and B) they blew a huge lead at home to the Atlanta Falcons and lost in hilarious fashion. Otherwise, key remaining matchups are Week 6 away versus the Colts, assuming they’ve righted the ship by then, and Week 12 away versus the Broncos. Admittedly, being matched up against the NFC East this year is a huge gift for the Pats, and with Miami looking pretty piss-poor thus far in the year, there’s a very, very good chance that New England can earn themselves another first-round bye and yet another chorus of “BLOO BLOO BLOO THEY’RE A BUNCH OF CHEATERS TOM BRADY SHOULD BE EXECUTED BLOO BLOO BLOO”. And when it does, I’ll laugh, drink, and say a little prayer that somehow Peyton Manning falls apart before the end of the year, and the New York Giants don’t make the NFC playoffs. So all in all, things are looking pretty good. No one denies this!

Reminder as well to all readers – I am looking for submissions to this week’s Mailbag! If you have questions about fantasy football and/or your love life, please send all inquiries to [email protected]. The Mailbag will be published every Friday, pending enough submitted material (hint, hint…).