For Brady, this is exactly what I thought they'd do. Rocky at first as he gets acclimated and they lean on the excellent defense. But getting more and more comfortable as the season progresses.
I am mostly interested though in thoughts on Cam Newton and what's wrong and how they'll fix it.
@Anarchy99 what do you see for Newton going forward?
I thought a couple things would happen that haven't. One, I thought NE would have schemed up more for the Patriots offense. McDaniels sounded almost giddy in camp about all the things he could draw up. In the early going, the Pats had a strong running game and that led to some ability to move the ball through the air. Then NE had all the COVID stuff that kept them from practicing and they have looked horrible since. They have gotten behind early and have gotten away from the running game. Yesterday was the perfect example. They stopped SF on their first two plays and were looking at a 3 and out and were about to sack Jimmy G who managed a last second dump off to Kittle. The drive continued for a TD.
They have mastered how to get 9 yards on an offensive series, which obviously is a problem. Add in that Edelman is hurt and probably shouldn't even be playing, and that leaves them with a quandary on how to move the football. In their first possession yesterday, they got to around midfield and White was stopped just short of a first down and they opted to punt. They quickly got down two TD and then they didn't really even try to run their run heavy offense.
Second, I thought Tampa would be more in disarray than they have been. I felt the Bucs with limited training camp would take 6 or 8 games to get acclimated and stood a decent chance of getting Brady clobbered while they all got on the same page. I still think he has missed some passes and made some poor decisions (ie the pick sixes early on) that he wouldn't have made several years ago. I also did not give the Tampa defense enough credit. They have been better than I expected.
The irony is that in the first few weeks NE looked like they didn't miss a beat with a new QB and hardly any practice while the Bucs looked a little bit lost at times. Now they have flipped flopped. As for the what can NE do question, for starters they can play better in the early part of games, stick with the run longer, and not turn the ball over. One of the issues I have noticed is that Cam is either staying in the pocket too long / holding the ball or trying to set up in the pocket too close to the line of scrimmage. Several of his interceptions have been from tipped passes that stood a better chance of being completed (ie guys were open) if he had moved or took another couple steps back in his drop.
The other issue which has carried over from training camp is Cam is not trusting his reads and instead of just firing the ball, he has been indecisive and looks for a different option. Combined with what I just posted, that is turning into sacks and a collapsing pocket . . . and there hasn't been a way for him to step into his passes. It's been debated in the Boston sports media circle that Edelman is not a fan of whomever has been throwing the ball to him this year, as his targets have often led him into defenders or have thrown passes behind him. Some speculate he is reluctant to want to take the contact on a play that many times won't help them much. A five yard crossing route on a 3rd and 13 or a 2 yard sideline route is not worth getting crushed.
More practice in general will help. More time to absorb the playbook would help. Adding a more proven receiver by trade would help (if it is actually an impact receiver and not just a journeyman in his 30's like Sanu was). Having an offensive line that isn't reconfigured almost every game and every possession would help. Edelman healthy and Harry healthy (knocked out of yesterday's game) would help. The defense playing better would help.
Add it all up, and I am not sure any of those would make the offense "good". They might be closer to average. I am not sure Cam fits well with the offensive players they have to work with. They still would be a sub-par offense with Brady, but they wouldn't have turned the ball over 11 times in three games with TB12. That's one thing I didn't account for . . . I got so used to Brady not throwing interceptions that it didn't really register with me that throwing the ball away is an acquired skill.