Bill Belichick is back to making people look really silly

The Patriots are looking like the Patriots again.

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Last February after Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl lots of people joyfully took shots at Bill Belichick, mostly saying that the legendary coach wasn’t so legendary without his former QB.

The Patriots last year were not what we’ve seen of the Patriots during Belichick’s long reign as head coach. Far from it. They finished 7-9 and were not a factor at all in the AFC East or AFC, a division and a conference they have dominated for a long time.

Well, it’s funny how things can change, or rather not change, in a hurry – Belichick has since regrouped and now has a team that has won four straight games and looks to be very much legit.

The Patriots improved to 6-4 yesterday with a 45-7 thumping of the Browns and are doing what good teams do – they are blowing out bad teams while also getting tough wins on the road.

Belichick did something this past offseason that he normally doesn’t do – he spent a lot of money to add key parts to both sides of the ball. Those additions have a defense that is back to playing the way we’ve seen Belichick’s defenses play over the years and the offense is back to having some weapons, like tight end Hunter Henry, who are quietly stacking up big numbers of late.

Leading the way, though, is Belichick’s new QB – Mac Jones. The Patriots used their first-round pick in last year’s draft on the former Alabama QB and now it’s looking like an absolutely brilliant move because he’s playing better than any of the four QBs that were picked before him.

Jones’ growth feels similar to what another young QB did in his first year with Belichick many years ago. You can see each week that Jones is being given more things to play with and his confidence is only rising after each performance. He made some absolutely beautiful throws against the Browns yesterday, including three TD passes that he made look way too easy.

Belichick has to be loving this. He’ll never say that Brady’s run last year and the jokes that followed got to him at all. And they probably didn’t because he doesn’t seem to pay attention to anything in the outside world (especially not fashion).

But Belichick is a perfectionist who loves to compete and loves to put his players in a position to be successful if they just do their jobs and right now they’re all doing their jobs very well.

Things will ramp up for the Patriots after Thursday night’s game against the Falcons, as they face the AFC-leading Titans in Week 12 and then have two games against the AFC East-leading Bills in December. Those games will tell us a lot more about this team.

But for right now, all those jokes we heard in February are old news.

Quick hits: NFL Week 10 Awards… Cam Newton becomes hilarious meme… Falcons’ perfect 28-3 tweet… And more. 

– My NFL Week 10 Awards look at the good, the bad, and the hilarious from Sunday’s games, including some good trolling in Green Bay.

– Cam Newton had an awesome return to the NFL on Sunday and his celebration after he ran for a TD quickly became a hilarious meme.

– The Falcons fell behind the Cowboys 28-3 during yesterday’s game and the team’s social media account handled it perfectly.

– Way too many NFL players don’t know the overtime rules.

– NFL refs made another horrible call on Sunday.