This Patriots dominance could end up hurting Brady in the long run. Can you really be the best ever if any old bum can come into your system and look just as good?

The Patriots don't play many half-assed games. That was one of them.

That was a clear "Let's get out of here without anymore injuries and wait for the GOAT next week" type of effort, especially after the first penalty that brought back the almost touchdown. That doesn't quite explain the mental gaffes (Jones on the returns and Gostowski sucking) or the missed tackles, or Blount being MIA (credit the Bills for stopping a one-dimensional offense). Some atrocious officiating didn't help either. Brissett also missed a couple of guys who were wide open, but that just proves you can't stick any QB in the Patriots system and expect to beat everyone.

It'll be interesting to see how sharp Brady looks next week. It probably helps they're facing the Browns, who even though they've been competitive, probably don't have enough to stop Edelman, Amendola, Gronkowski, and Bennett. It's clear that the Patriots have tried to use Gronkowski as little as possible until Brady comes back because of his injury, and the other here have been intentionally underused since Garoppolo got hurt.

Patriots just traded Jamie Collins to the Browns for a 3rd round pick.

Pats middling defense finally got exposed. The good news is that they don't play another good team again. The bad news is that the defense, as is, is not good enough to win a Super Bowl.

It's weird to say, but the Cowboys are the best team in the NFL right now.

The Packers ' defense is worse than the Browns'.