Not Your Father's Patriots

For those who have wondered over the years how good a coach Bill Belichick would be without Tom Brady, well, you're starting to get your answer:

Chargers 30, Patriots 10.

These Brady-less Patriots are kind of like what the Dodgers were without Manny Ramirez. Not a bad team, but clearly not a great team. Very beatable team.

And that's exactly what the Chargers did to the Patriots on Sunday night, thoroughly dismantling Belichick's boys on national TV.

Brady's replacement, Matt Cassel, might eventually be a serviceable quarterback, but the guy is learning on the job, and expecting him to beat talented teams might be asking a bit much at this stage of his development. And Cassel's cause wasn't helped by the fact that the Patriots had basically no running game, with Laurence Maroney inactive.

Seeing Belichick on the sidelines with an increasingly disgusted look Sunday night, we almost started to feel sorry for the guy.

Almost.