30 Days Without Tom Brady

As Tom Brady serves his four-game suspension in football exile, we're here to fill your daily Brady fix with the fun, the football and everything in between.

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What makes Belichick great? Ask Brady

No player has had more of an up-close, behind-the-scenes view of the New England Patriots over the past 17 years than quarterback Tom Brady, and he shared some of his observations of coach Bill Belichick during his weekly interview on Westwood One Radio on Monday.

Asked what stands out to him about Belichick, Brady cited words such as "consistency" and "urgency."

"It's so much of what you don't see on these Sunday afternoons," Brady said. "It's the way the offseason program is run in April, his enthusiasm and his urgency at that time of year, when no one is watching. His OTA schedule, and his emphasis over the course of those practices in May and June when no one is really watching and there is no scoreboard to compete against. But we always feel like we're in competition with the other teams, even when there is no scoreboard. So you go to training camp and you can't waste days, because you don't get those days back. Those days in training camp prepare you for what's going to happen in September.

"There's urgency throughout the entire offseason to get us to the month of September, and then once September comes, it's all about winning games and making improvements towards October. And once you make improvements towards October, you can be in a really good position to really capitalize come November. That's when the playoff race is starting to shape up and you really see where you're at, and there's a lot of scouting that's been done at that point. That's where you really see the team develop and how the depth of the team really takes place.

"Coach Belichick is always understanding where the roster needs to be at, and which positions we may need a little more depth at based on some injuries over the course of the season. Then there comes December, the last stretch of the season, when you need to be at your best. He prepares us all the way throughout the season and his consistency has been remarkable, it's been fun to see, obviously, from this point for the last four weeks. But I've experienced that every day, so that part of it doesn't really surprise me. To see the way that my teammates have come out and played and performed under pressure -- on a Sunday night game, and then their first home game, on a Thursday night national TV game -- it's just been so much fun to watch."

Brady called playing for Belichick a "privilege."

"I think whatever hand he's been dealt, he finds a way to win. That's the mark of a great coach," he said on Westwood One. "Sitting in those meetings for the last 16 years and watching him prepare the team, there's no [other] coach I'd ever want to play for. He's just remarkable in every aspect. ... He's been so consistent in his approach and it has paid off for our team for a long time." -- Mike Reiss

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Does Patriots' defense have Super potential?

The New England Patriots' defense was supposed to help carry the team during Tom Brady's four-game suspension, and the unit lived up to its billing in Week 3. Behind a standout performance from Jamie Collins, the Patriots shut out the Houston Texans.

New England has been brilliant outside of garbage time, allowing only 24 total points in the first three quarters of games. And remember: The Patriots have been doing it without Dont'a Hightower for the past two weeks (injury) and Rob Ninkovich for the entire time (injury/suspension).

So the Patriots' defense should continue to be a strength of the team the rest of the way. And while it has been only three games, its performance so far still begs the question: How does this unit stack up against the defenses that helped Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots play in six Super Bowls?

One quick conclusion: The 2016 Patriots may want to get their sacks and interceptions up.

So far this year, New England has five sacks and three interceptions, on pace for season totals of 27 and 16, respectively. The fewest sacks they have had in any of their six Super Bowl seasons under Brady and Belichick was 40, in both 2011 and 2014. Their highest single-season sack total in those six years was the 47 they put up in their undefeated 2007 regular season.

The lowest team interception total the Pats have posted in any of their six Super Bowl seasons was 16 in 2014. On average, they have had 22 interceptions per Super Bowl season. The good news here is that they're on pace for 37 total takeaways, which would be a higher number than they posted in any of their previous six Super Bowl seasons except 2003, when they had 41. But interceptions are the more reliable piece of a takeaway total, as they're less random than recovered fumbles.

That 2003 Patriots defense was the best of any of the six Brady/Belichick Super Bowl defenses. It ranked first in the league in points allowed per game (14.9), seventh in yards allowed per game (291.7), third in takeaways (41), fourth in rushing yards allowed per game (89.7) and first in interceptions (29).

This year's team is off to a good start in the points department: The Patriots' 15 PPG allowed ranks fifth overall. But they're allowing 361.7 yards per game, including 271 through the air. The 2011 defense was the only one of the six Brady/Belichick Super Bowl teams to allow more than that, finishing 31st in both total defense (411 YPG) and pass defense (293.9). How did that team make it all the way to the Super Bowl? Yeah, you guessed it: takeaways. It was third in the league with 34 takeaways and second with 23 interceptions.

The Patriots will get Hightower back, and they expect Ninkovich to boost the pass rush once he gets healthy after his suspension expires. Collins and cornerback Malcolm Butler are bona fide superstars. The pieces are in place for this to be an elite defense, and it surely played like one on Thursday.

But if you're wondering whether this is a Super Bowl-caliber defense by the Patriots' standards, watch the sacks and the interceptions, and see if the pace picks up. -- Dan Graziano

Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire

The unlikelihood of four wins with two backup QBs

The New England Patriots are one victory away from a 4-0 start without quarterback Tom Brady -- and with inexperienced backups Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett splitting starts. That scenario got us thinking: Just how rare would it be if they pull off a perfect record while their Hall of Fame quarterback is suspended?

As it turns out, it's not all that unusual for a team to go 4-0 while starting two different quarterbacks. According to research by Elias Sports Bureau, it has happened four times in the past 13 years. But when you look at the details of those instances, you realize the Patriots' degree of difficulty was notably greater.

In three of the cases, an experienced backup replaced an injured starter. That happened in 2012, when Kevin Kolb (16 career starts at that point) replaced John Skelton for the Arizona Cardinals. The same thing happened with the Tennessee Titans in 2008, when Kerry Collins (149 starts) took over for Vince Young. And Gus Frerotte (62 starts) seamlessly replaced Daunte Culpepper for the 2003 Minnesota Vikings.

The fourth instance came in 2003, when the Carolina Panthers reversed what had been a tight training camp competition between Rodney Peete and Jake Delhomme. Peete started in Week 1, but Delhomme -- who had started two games for the New Orleans Saints in 1999, had thrown 86 NFL passes, and previously played in NFL Europe -- replaced him at halftime of that game and continued as the starter for the rest of the season.

Elias doesn't have a record of teams that started 4-0 with three different quarterbacks, a possible scenario for the Patriots in 2016 if neither Garoppolo (shoulder) nor Brissett (thumb) are able to play Sunday against the Buffalo Bills. But what we can say is that the Patriots, having lost Brady to suspension and Garoppolo for at least one game due to his injury, are on the brink of an achievement that we don't usually see in the NFL. -- Kevin Seifert

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Deflategate wreaked havoc everywhere except Vegas

Deflategate was considered a minor hassle with minimal impact on the New England Patriots' Super Bowl odds and their overall season outlook by Las Vegas bookmakers.

The Patriots were consensus favorites to win the Super Bowl before Tom Brady's four-game suspension was reinstated in April and after his final appeal was denied in July. And New England's season win total over/under stood firm at 10.5 during the process.

"For us, [Deflategate] just wasn't a big deal," said Ed Salmons, head football oddsmaker at the Westgate SuperBook.

While the Patriots' season outlook didn't change drastically with Brady's suspension, the point spread on their Week 1 game at the Arizona Cardinals did. On April 25, a federal appeals court reinstated Brady's suspension for his role in Deflategate, just five days after the Westgate posted point spreads and opened betting on the Week 1 games. The line on New England's game at the Arizona Cardinals opened at pick 'em, but it was quickly taken off the board after the court ruled in favor of the NFL. When it reopened on July 13, after Brady saw his final appeal denied by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the Westgate posted the Cardinals as 5.5-point favorites.

Sportsbook operator CG Technology took a different approach and kept the Patriots-Cardinals game on the board during the 12 weeks leading up to Brady's appeal being denied.

"It just ends up being a guessing game," CG Technology vice president of race and sports Jason Simbal said. "We're guessing if Brady will or will not play. If the bettor agrees with our guess, he won't bet it, and if he [disagrees], he will. But most of the time, no one really bets a game where there so much unknown. For the most part, we all have the same information."

By kickoff of New England's opener, the line had grown to Arizona -9, with 80 percent of the money on the Cardinals at William Hill's Nevada book.

The Patriots won 23-21.

Now, after an impressive 3-0 start without Brady, the Patriots look like even more prohibitive favorites. On Wednesday, the Westgate SuperBook listed them at 5-1 to win it all. Yet, twice this season, the betting public has flocked to bet against the Patriots, including in Thursday night's home game against the Houston Texans.

"A-B-B ... Always bet on Belichick," said Jay Rood, vice president of MGM race and sports Jay Rood on Thursday night, with his book financially invested in New England against the Houston Texans, like most of the shops in Las Vegas.

The Patriots defeated the Texans 27-0. -- David Purdum

How to eat like Brady and Gisele

Eating like Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen would take some serious commitment. Here's what their extreme diet does and doesn't include.

NFL Insider Dan Graziano talks about what Tom Brady doesn't eat in order to maintain his healthy lifestyle and also what the four-time Super Bowl champion likes for a treat.

AP Photo/Gregory Payan

'Just a masterful coaching job'

Thursday night was humbling for the 31 NFL teams and coaching staffs based outside Massachusetts. The New England Patriots' 27-0 victory over the Houston Texans demonstrated more emphatically than ever how much distance separates Bill Belichick from his NFL head-coaching peers. The gap might as well be measured in miles.

When the Patriots knocked off Arizona in Week 1 despite playing without Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski, I thought the Coach of the Year award should reside in Belichick's office until another team matched what New England pulled off in that game.

"It is a signature win that perfectly describes their program, and that is, 'Just play,'" a coach from another team said at the time. "They travel 2,500 miles with no Gronk and no Brady to play in prime time against a team that returned intact from the NFC Championship Game. They find a way because that is the culture that Bill has instilled. People talk about next man up; they enact it."

What the Patriots accomplished Thursday night -- routing the previously 2-0 Texans with third-round rookie quarterback Jacoby Brissett having three days to prepare for his first NFL start -- raised the bar another notch.

It might take Mike Zimmer's 2-0 Minnesota Vikings winning at Carolina without Teddy Bridgewater, Adrian Peterson and Matt Kalil to make the Coach of the Year competition more than a one-man race in the short term. While Zimmer and the Vikings acquired 2010 No. 1 overall pick Sam Bradford to fill in for Bridgewater, the Patriots have gone 3-0 against Arizona, Miami and Houston with Jimmy Garoppolo and Brissett, who lack Bradford's pedigree.

As the Patriots pulled away from the Texans on Thursday night, some of the coaches and evaluators I correspond with began marveling at the spectacle.

"Just a masterful coaching job," one of them said. "They ran low-risk college plays -- the option, jet sweep, QB keepers -- while peppering the defense with short passes. That's how they slowed J.J. Watt and that pass rush. Almost no matter their lineup, under Bill they play error-free ball and win as a result."

An evaluator thought the Patriots had a shot at going undefeated despite possessing less offensive talent than quite a few teams, including his own.

"Shows the importance of coaching," this evaluator said.

Belichick has set such a high standard that he has needed to outperform other coaches to win national honors. New England averaged 14.7 victories the three times Belichick was named Coach of the Year over the past 13 seasons. Belichick's teams won 118 games in the 10 seasons he did not win the award. The actual coaches of the year combined to win 116.

Whether the Patriots go 9-7 or 16-0 or fall somewhere in between, what they've accomplished already this season will stand on its own. At the very least, there can be no more holding Tom Brady against Belichick when the final assessment is made. -- Mike Sando

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Where every Brady backup is now

As the Patriots prepare to play two more games with Tom Brady backups, breaking in a new one (Jacoby Brissett) Thursday night, let's take a look back at the men who have carried the clipboard since Brady became the Patriots' starting quarterback in 2001.

Drew Bledsoe (2001): The 21st century's answer to Wally Pipp, Bledsoe couldn't fight off the phenom. But Pats fans will always remember his relief work in that first AFC Championship Game against the Steelers after Brady got hurt. Bledsoe's post-career ventures have included winemaking and coaching high school football in Oregon.

Damon Huard (2001-03): Brady got the job, remember, because Bledsoe was hurt. So Huard, whom Brady beat out for the backup job in camp in 2001, took over as the backup until Bledsoe got healthy. Huard made 27 career NFL starts, though none for New England. In retirement, Huard teamed with former Dolphins QB Dan Marino to open a winery.

Rohan Davey (2002-04): New England's fourth-round pick in 2002, Davey had a big arm but never developed as an NFL quarterback. He did play for a while in NFL Europe and the Arena Football League. Davey currently lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he works for the Quality Concrete Group and runs a Jamaican-food-catering business on the side.

Jim Miller (2004): Miller never threw a pass for the Patriots, but he did earn a Super Bowl ring for his work as a Brady backup in 2004. He'd spent 10 years in the NFL with six teams before he showed up in New England, so he was almost done at that point. Miller has built a successful career as a radio broadcaster with Sirius/XM.

Doug Flutie (2005): Everyone remembers Flutie's season with the Patriots for the drop kick. But Flutie, 43 at the time, also completed 5 of 10 passes that year and then called it a career. Flutie does a fair bit of broadcasting, plays drums in a band with his brothers and was on "Dancing with the Stars" last year.

Matt Cassel (2005-08): The Patriots took Cassel in the seventh round in 2005 even though he'd never started a college game. He became Brady's backup after Flutie retired and moved front and center when Brady blew out his knee in the 2008 opener. Cassel and the Patriots went 11-5 that year, and he landed a six-year, $63 million contract with the Chiefs the following summer. He has started 64 games for four teams since 2009, but he has never attained the same level of success he had with the Patriots in 2008. Cassel is currently backing up Marcus Mariota with the Tennessee Titans.

Vinny Testaverde (2006): Right? I forgot, too! This was Testaverde's 20th NFL season and his sixth NFL team, but not his last of either. He actually started six games for the Carolina Panthers in 2007. Testaverde ranks ninth all time in NFL passing yards. He's coaching high school football in South Florida, where his son is a quarterback -- just as he once was -- for the University of Miami.

Matt Gutierrez (2007-08): He completed both of his NFL passes, including one 15-yarder for the Patriots in 2007. Gutierrez is now helping train athletes at a place called Kenion Training in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Kevin O'Connell (2008): As a third-round pick in 2008, O'Connell was probably the first Brady backup who made some people wonder whether the team was thinking about life without Brady. It's a good thing they weren't, though, because O'Connell didn't pan out and was cut after one season. He was the Cleveland Browns' quarterbacks coach in 2015 and is now a member of the 49ers' coaching staff under Chip Kelly.

Brian Hoyer (2009-11): Undrafted out of Michigan State, Hoyer didn't start a game in three years with the Patriots but has since started one for the Cardinals, 16 for the Browns and 10 for the Texans (including a playoff game he probably doesn't want to talk about), and he is slated to start Sunday for the Bears. He has established himself as a quality NFL backup who can, on occasion, be asked to do more. There are worse ways to make a living.

Ryan Mallett (2011-13): Another third-round pick who maybe sort of could have made his way into the post-Brady conversation, Mallett has never looked as good as he did while sitting behind Brady. Teams wanted him, and the Patriots traded him to Houston for a late-round pick in 2014. But he flopped as a starter there and is now backing up Joe Flacco in Baltimore.

Jimmy Garoppolo (2014-16): Where are they now? We just saw Jimmy G on Sunday, lighting up the Dolphins for three first-half touchdowns before leaving with a shoulder injury. Garoppolo was a surprise second-round pick in 2014, and his brief performance in relief of Brady so far this year probably means he'll have trade value once he gets healthy.

Jacoby Brissett (2016): Well, you know ... we'll see. The 2016 third-round pick is likely to start Thursday night against the Texans. -- Dan Graziano

AP Photo/Steven Senne

Brady stepping up his TB12 business

In 2008, Tom Brady went to a firm named BrandFire asking for help to design a logo. The result is his now-familiar "TB12" logo that, until recently, wasn't on anything for sale and couldn't be seen anywhere but on Brady's body.

It has taken time for Brady to build his TB12 business, but as he confronts the latter part of his career and the afterlife, there's been a lot movement in the last nine months. In January, Brady re-launched his website and started selling TB12 products, including exercise equipment and canisters of protein powder. He's made more people aware of the performance center he has at Patriot Place. In May, he sold his first run of a nutritional manual that despite its $200 cost, sold out in minutes. In August, he came out with variety pack of licensed nuts for $50.

Demand for the original run of products seemed strong, but that might be because Brady's web team limited the availability on purpose to generate buzz. If that's the case, it has worked -- at least initially.

Brady has an incredible amount of goodwill built up among his fans who staunchly support him. No evidence is stronger than the fact that his jersey consistently ranks among the most popular in the league even though he plays for a team that has rarely changed up its jersey.

Jersey sales notwithstanding, the success of the TB12 brand will ultimately depend on whether fans believe what he's selling is truly different enough to pay the markups. Are the products proprietary or can they be bought elsewhere for less without the TB12 logo?

One thing is for sure: Brady's target market doesn't have a problem discerning substance from flash. If TB12's products prove to be more of the latter and less of the former, not even the biggest Tom Brady die-hards will be caught buying them. -- Darren Rovell

Take your pick: Belichick or Brady?

After 16 years, 172 regular-season wins, 13 AFC East titles and four Super Bowl victories, it's impossible to separate Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. But pretend for a moment you could have only one of them. Would you rather have the mastermind coach, who's 12-5 in his last 17 games without Brady, including 2-0 this season? Or would you take the future Hall of Fame QB who has averaged 12.3 wins in his 13 full seasons? Cast your vote below: