Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ambulance Chaser 
The season has already been pretty surprising. The Patriots still look like the Patriots even without Brady.
I'm still skeptical about the Patriots. The Patriots defense was getting old last season, and they needed to run up the score so as to not expose their defense. If an opponent is down by twenty points before the half, this limits the opponent's offense and allows the Patriots defense to sit back and wait for passes without worrying about the run.
This season, the Patriots defense is one year older and even more vulnerable, especially with their secondary. With a healthy Tom Brady, I thought NE was still going to win but have to do it in shoot out games where the score was 35-31 or something like that. Right now, the Patriots defense still appears stout but that's because the season is early. But, after the punishment of some more games, I expect their age to catch up to the Patriots defense as we start to see them give up more and more points. And, then, that's when we'll really see the Patriots miss Tom Brady.
I'm pretty skeptical about Matt Cassell. He played so poorly in mop up duty last year that the Patriots had to reinsert Brady into those games. And, Cassell had played so poorly during the off-season that the Patriots had seriously considered cutting him.
If I was a betting man, I'd take the Dolphins with the spread NE is getting; we're not talking about last year's NE team. I figure even if NE defense mauls Miami, Pennington is still going to
lead Miami to at least 10 or 14 points. That would mean NE would need to score 27 to cover that spread, and I'm not sure Cassell can do that even if NE wins.
