BY ADAM GREENE<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We might not know who the next President of the United States will be as of this writing, but over the weekend we learned plenty about the NFL landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So let\u2019s talk about some of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
TOM<\/strong> BRADY DOESN\u2019T NEED BILL BELICHICK. BELICHICK NEEDS TOM BRADY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After the offseason divorce between the future Hall of Fame head coach and his quarterback, the question was asked; who needed who more?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We now have the answer and it\u2019s pretty definitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The New England Patriots currently sit at 2-5 while the Brady-led Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 6-2 and, if the playoff started today, would be the No. 2 seed in the NFC. Brady\u2019s completing 66.2 percent of his passes for 2,189 yards, 20 touchdowns and just four picks. He\u2019s on pace to record his second 40-plus TD season of his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Belichick is on pace for a Top Five draft pick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, obviously the Bucs have a talented team around Brady, but it\u2019s pretty much the same squad that went 7-9 last year. The Pats, fielding pretty much the same team with Brady under center a year ago, went 12-4. They could easily flip that record in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No one would ever argue the fact that having great players makes you a better coach. We\u2019ve seen great quarterbacks keep horrible coaches employed all the time, Mike McCarthy and Bill O\u2019Brien just to name a couple of them. Brady and Belichick were married so long, it\u2019s difficult to separate their success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But you can. As head coach of the Cleveland Browns from 1991-1995, Belichick had one winning season, an 11-5 campaign in 1994. His final head coaching record in Cleveland was 36-44. If you factor in the year Brady tore his ACL and was out and his current record, he\u2019s 49-54, a sub.500 coach with just two winning seasons without TB12 tossing passes for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does this mean Belichick is secretly garbage? No. There\u2019s no way they win six Super Bowls and play in 142 without him. But I\u2019d wager they\u2019d have still won a few with Brady at QB sans Belichick. Because that\u2019s just how important the quarterback is. And for nearly 20 years, Belichick had the best guy that ever played the position working for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brady was always good, but there was a stretch there, from 2005-2015, where he was a dead-eye killer. Anyone could have won with that Tom Brady. He\u2019s the best ever, sure, but that was his best era. That Brady could have dragged anyone to a Vince Lombardi Trophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, McCarthy does have a ring after all thanks to Aaron Rodgers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s still a good chance New England can pull it together. Cam Newton is hardly garbage and was playing well before he missed a couple of weeks with the coronavirus. With the extra Wild Card team, the playoffs aren\u2019t even off the table if they can battle to a 9-7 record. But the margin of error is now gone and the bloom is off the Belichick rose. Nobody believes for a second this team would be 2-5 with Brady at QB, even at 43 and probably 85 percent of what he was at his peak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n JARED GOFF HAS REAL WORK TO DO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Los Angeles Rams came into Sunday\u2019s game against the Miami Dolphins in great shape. They were a game behind the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC West with both their match ups ahead on the schedule. At worst, they looked like a Wild Card team that could do some real damage in the playoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the wheels came off in a total dumpster fire loss to the Miami Dolphins. This wasn\u2019t a team loss by any stretch, though you can toss some blame at Sean McVay for getting outcoached once again by Brian Flores. This loss belongs to quarterback Jared Goff, who had a complete meltdown of a game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are the most telling stats; the Rams defense held the Dolphins to just eight first downs total. They held them to 145 total yards and rookie quarterback Tua Tagovailoa completed 12 of 22 for just 93 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile Goff threw 61 passes, completing 35 of them for 355 yards, one touchdown and two awful interceptions. And it should have been three as a Miami defensive back dropped a sure pick six in the fourth quarter. Three of the Dolphins\u2019 touchdowns came from Goff turnovers, one a 78-yard fumble return for a score from Andrew Van Ginkel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goff, on the whole, has been better this season, but that has just made his flaws more glaring. Since McVay took over the Rams have never lost a game where they lead at the half and there\u2019s a good reason for that; Goff, when he gets off to a good start, is as good as anyone in the league. If he\u2019s on, he can usually stay on. The problems arise when he\u2019s off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Against Miami, Goff started 0-for-4, with his first completion a one-yard dump off to Cooper Kupp. He was 4-for-8 when he threw his first interception that set the Dolphins up deep in Rams territory and led to Tagovailoa\u2019s first career touchdown pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what\u2019s to be done? This is obviously a head problem with Goff and one that can\u2019t just be handwaved or easily fixed. If I\u2019m McVay, in addition to learning how to coach against a zero blitz, I design a first drive that will lead to easy Goff completions and get him zoned in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be fair to Goff, he did bounce back strong from a poor first half against the Buffalo Bills this season, which shows he can do it. But it\u2019s simply not a part of his game you can count on. A slow-starting Goff is a recipe for disaster that you don\u2019t have to read four paragraphs about the author\u2019s trip to Tuscany to get to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow our BetOnline Twitter accoun<\/a>t for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the Instagram feed<\/a> for more good information too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY ADAM GREENE We might not know who the next President of the United States will be as of this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":14245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t