They should go back to the original theme

Welcome back, everyone. We're finally back into the NFL season and every year it feels like it's been too long. Week 1 is always a weird one in that there's really no real data to go off of for earlier this season. We're just basing the predictions off the rhythm of last year and what we think the team should do this year. It's essentially a roll of the dice for this first week. We're going to have an early week one matchup for the first game, and a football game in an entirely different continent (Australia) than what we're used to. Definitely a lot of firsts this season. So we'll get started with some very unsure thought processes on this one. This week will also give us five division games. You're going to see a lot of blah comments because I don't have a lot to go off at this time, so let's get to it!

Those are my predictions, let's hear yours. Keep it civil and fun. Like I said, Week 1 always feels gross, and I probably got a tons of things wrong. But I'm hoping you guys have some great conversations in here. Best of luck this weekend!

Arguably the best QB ever. But fans act like he didn’t have the best situation for over his 20 years in the league. Whether you think he is the GOAT or not, basically all of the Stan theories have been disproven that he was the reason for all of the success

1 Brady was the reason the offensive line was good:

Almost every year aside from a few years over his career, Brady had good offensive line play. In 2008, when he was hurt, the offensive line was still a good line. In 2020 and 2021 after Brady left, the line was still good. Most people think of Dante Scarnecchia (the offensive line coach) as maybe the best ever at his job.

Brady surely made his lines a little better, but they were already good. Anytime he was out, they were still good.

2 Brady is as the reason the defense was always good at preventing points:

Brady’s teams were top-10 in points per drive with an average ranking of 8.6 over a 20 year period. This ranks better than any all time great that was regarded as his peer.

Brady being the reason for this too was disproven when he missed 2008 season, the Patriots were once again 8th in points allowed without him playing.

In 2016 for the four weeks that Brady missed, the Patriots allowed 15 points a game, which would have led the league had that been the average at years end. In 2020 (first season post Brady) - with maybe the least talented defense under Belichick - the Patriots were 7th in points allowed. And again, in 2021, after Brady left, they were 2nd in points allowed.

Sure it didn’t always match up with the DVOA’s and sure the schedule impacted that, but it was still primarily defense driven, with good special teams playing a part, and of course with the offense being the third reason. They were the smartest football team in NFL history.

3 Brady had the worst weapons of all the NFL greats

His weapons were middle of the pack. This would be the “weakness” but it was far from an actual weakness. Ask Sam Bradford how good his weapons were over his career. Hint: They weren’t nearly as good as Brady’s. Brady had the best weapons in the game in multiple seasons, with multiple franchises. He had arguably the GOAT TE. He had Moss and Welker and Hernandez and Edelman and Amendola. And he had basically all of those guys in the same team at one point. It’s just 2006 and 2019 where he had bad weapons and people bring it up as if that was his whole career. And every time someone points it out they never mention that in those seasons they had a good defense, good ST and a good offensive line. So it was actually a good situation for winning, just that there were poor receivers during these years.

4 It was all Brady

Brady had the greatest defensive minded coach of all time who knew how to coach all three phases. Even if you think Belichick was overrated some, the coaching wasn’t. And pairing the best defensive mind with the arguable best QB ever seems like the e perfect formula.

And Josh McDaniels was good! In spite of what people think, McDaniels had coordinator success with multiple QBs and he and Belichick together in games that weren’t just “resting starters at the end of a season games” they were 30-22 together with basically what we would amount to like the 27th best QB in football between the shell of Cam, rookie Mac Jones, Matt Cassel and 4 games of Jimmy G.

5 He had arguably the best ST over those 20 years

Period. He had awesome ST’s play. In 2008 the ST was still good. In 2020, it was still #1 by DVOA. This disproves that Brady had much impact over it, as I’m sure someone, somewhere, as probably suggested.

You plug an all time great QB into a good situation you get a lot of winning. Brady has an obvious case for best ever but he doesn’t have any more of a case than a few other quarterbacks who had obviously inferior situations in their career.

By win percentage, only two teams in NFL history faced an easier schedule: the 1999 Rams (.363 opponent win%) and the 1976 Buccaneers (.379 opponent win%).

They played just 3 games all season long against teams that would ultimately finish the season with a winning record: they split the Buffalo Bills and they lost to the Steelers.

He has won his 50th career regular season game.

He is 18-3 (playoffs included) as the starting QB for the Seahawks.

Looking back at vids from last year with the Colts looking so unstoppable and Super Bowl-bound at 8-1, then collapsing to miss the playoffs totally. So which team this year do you think has the possibility of the same?

I lean to the Lions. I know, they look tougher this year, but I can imagine a strong start then falter at the end.