This is going to be a big weekend for the Patriots. But it’s not because of a game, but because it’s the last bye week for them this year. They have a tough schedule on the way. They have two games against the Miami Dolphins and games against the Colts and Saints. These are some of the toughest teams in the league this year, and New England is finally getting back on their feet for this season. We haven’t yet seen quite enough in the way of dominant wins to be really confident, but there’s still time. In the case of the Dolphins, it’s actually pretty critical that they at least split the games and hopefully they will be able to simply sweep them out. The Patriots need to beat out the Dolphins in particular, as they are really the only other contender in the AFC East.

The Tampa Bay Bucs lost to the Pats 35-7. It was a good game following the outstanding win against the Titans last week. It wasn’t really a struggle at all. Many people are concerned that this team might not be able to get it all done in the next month or so, since they are going to have to play against several tougher opponents coming up. There are some questions about whether this team is ready for the next step and whether the Jets or Dolphins might be on their way to challenge them. No matter what, the team will be better off than the Bucs who remain winless. Who knows what the next games will yield but so far, the Patriots are doing fairly well.

The Patriots and the Bucs will be playing on Sunday in London and it will be a game that’s supposed to bring the NFL right to Europe. The league has been trying to get a lot going in that part of the world and starting to play a few games there will go a long way to helping people understand the game. Back to the game itself: it will be fun to see if the Patriots can finally get a road win, because they haven’t had one yet this season. The Patriots are good and they had a dominant game against the Titans last weekend, but we will hope that they have some more touchdowns in them this week.

Tom Brady led the Pats against a hapless Tennessee team (in Houston Oilers garb) on Sunday, with a score of 59-0. That’s right, almost 60 points. Brady led them in a snow-filled day in Foxborough, and hopefully it will be the end of the questions about whether this team is ready. They have also shown themselves to be perhaps the only AFC East team that’s worth their while. The Bills aren’t doing much and nor are the Dolphins. The Jets are sinking, it would seem, having lost three in a row now. This leaves us as the only team standing, though it’s not like we don’t deserve it. It’ll be a great year if Brady can get back into his old abilities and push hard back up the leaderboard. Let’s check it out and see! Anyone else miss those old Pats uniforms with the Revolutionary Minuteman on the front?

We spend a ridiculous amount of time on this blog talking about Tom Brady. This isn’t that bad a thing, considering that he’s perhaps the most important player on the squad, but it seems like we should have more information about the other guys. After his injury, it’s a little difficult waiting to see him struggle back to his former greatness. He has the ability and probably has the talent still. But he’s not quite back there. He doesn’t have all the pass protection he needs and his receivers are a little bit different too. There’s no blame from him coming out to us critics. He’s been successful all that time and he holds himself to high expectations too. Hopefully, we’ll be able to celebrate his full return soon, and once the team finally gets the lines in order, it will be much better.

It was a battle between Mentor and Mentee. Josh McDaniels took on Da Coach of New England yesterday and it was a rough game for northeasterners. The hope was that we would be able to challenge that undefeated team and get them back into the close playoff race. Instead, the Broncos came out with a variety of unusual plays that threw off the New England defensive strategy. Meanwhile, their defense held down the fort, especially on the left side where New England had planned to make their biggest attacks. We lost in the end. It wasn’t a bad game, but it’s not the way New England should be losing games. We need to contest the games much more fully and keep from losing against teams that they have dominated in the past.

When the Denver Broncos take on the Patriots this weekend, they will be taking their 4-0 start right in their hands. This is a tough day for them and it will be interesting to see how the game turns out. It took a couple weeks for the Pats to get back to normal action, but they have finally hit their stride. For whatever reason, the Broncos haven’t been beaten, even against the normally hard-to-beat Cowboys, who were coming off a dramatic Monday Night Football win. Kyle Orton and company have played surprisingly great football so far. But they will have their work cut out for them, with Brady back on track and the receivers are finally doing it. The defensive problems that were anticipated seem to be not nearly as bad as predicted. This is a good team and they will not roll over for anyone!

While the Patriots won this weeks games against Conference rivals, the Ravens, their opponents are displeased with the officiating during this time around. The debate is going to continue for a long time, but it’s very interesting to see this in progress. The Ravens say that they were called for roughing the passer, even when nothing happened. When they were just going towards Brady during the course of a hard play. Brady himself says that it’s too bad to get bad calls, but that sometimes happens. But meanwhile, the Ravens say that it might have cost them the game to have helped the Pats to 14 points. Who knows? Either way, we got the win and nothing can be done about that right now. We’ll just have to wait and see if the general officiating changes.

Junior Seau has been in retirement a bunch of times in the last few years. He’s come out of retirement twice already to play with the Patriots and Belichick. He’s a great player, or he was a long time ago. Since he is close to the top of his playing ability, it might be interesting to see if he decides to come back. His ability to play might not be as high as it used to be. But he’s talking about another comeback today and it’s going to be more fun for everyone to see what’s been going on and how much in conditioning he’s on. Seau has always been a good presence on the team, he’s mellowed a bit since his past days and we’ll see what the next step will be in the next few years. Maybe it’s just idle chatter more than anything else.