10. New England Patriots (+6)
Last week the Patriots beat the Miami Dolphins and I didn’t get them much credit. Today they lost to the Seattle Seahawks, but it was so impressive that I have to start taking them seriously.
Almost nonchalantly the Patriots put up 30 points on the Seattle Seahawks and they found a way to keep themselves in the game despite not having the star power that the Seahawks had. Cam Newton wasn’t perfect, but he is a lot closer to what he was his MVP year than what he was during his stretch of injuries.
I still think that the Patriots are going to struggle against offenses that field and NFL-caliber offensive line or teams that have good EDGEs, but that isn’t a concern that you have to worry about alot in the AFC East and really throughout the AFC as a whole.
Maybe we should all buy into the narrative of Bill Belichick getting bored of winning the same way over and over again, so he intentionally tried to tank his team to see if he could pull himself out of it.
9. Dallas Cowboys (-2)
The Dallas Cowboys are banged up, but that is still no excuse to need an amazing onside kick to come up with a win against one of the most snakebitten teams in the NFL over the last few years.
As you would expect, once the Cowboys remembered how to score this game went from a blowout to being close in a hurry. Despite the Falcons almost dropping 40 on them, the Cowboys ended up winning on the back of a monster day by Dak Prescott’s arsenal of pass catchers.
This is a problem for the Cowboys and they have to do better at getting up on teams early, but right now they are 1-1 despite being dangerously close to 0-2 and for a team with a new head coach, this first half of the season is more about making sure that they are in position to get hot and make a run late and not expecting this team to be crisp right now.