Cleveland Browns: Stefanski vs Cousins presages Belichick vs Brady

So what about Billy versus Tommy?

If you believe that the coach has the edge over the quarterback in confrontations between the young Jedi and the old master, what is to be made of the fact that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are -7 point favorites over the New England Patriots?

Three comments follow.

First, yes, coach Belichick does still have Jedi mind tricks to use on quarterback Brady and it is an advantage. Nobody knows Brady’s weaknesses better than Belichick. He does have weaknesses, although we do not expect Belichick to be the scout team quarterback like John Gruden.

Part of the reason why Brady is so invincible late in the fourth quarter is that individual defensive backs are so scared of him that they all play like Jabrill Peppers did as a rookie, 30 yards off the line of scrimmage. Remember, defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was so insistent that Peppers not allow the receivers to get behind him, that he had Peppers pay a crazy distance off the line of scrimmage.

Well, every defensive back in the NFL wants to play like that against Brady in the fourth quarter because they are so intimidated. Belichick’s task is to make his defensive backs more afraid of Belichick than Brady. They have to quit giving Brady free short passes, especially in the fourth quarter and making him look automatically invincible.

Belichick has spent 20 years complaining about how Brady reacts properly to certain defensive alignments, shifts, and so on. Here’s his chance to prove it.

Second, football is a team game, and Tampa Bay has a much better team than New England. Not to belabor the obvious, but Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl last season (15-5 overall) and New England went all of 7-9. This season, Tampa Bay is 2-1, which is good but not great, and the Patriots are 1-2 with a rookie quarterback.

Mac Jones has shown talent, but he is still a rookie. Greg Rosenthal has him penciled can pencil him in as about the 25th best quarterback in the NFL right now, but Brady is ranked number one. That’s too high, but you get the point. There are others on Tampa Bay’s team that have the Force within them besides Brady, apparently.

Third, if Tampa Bay has a better team than New England, and they do, does that mean that seven points is the correct spread? That is a much more difficult question, especially since they are playing in New England. Seven points on the road is quite a large spread.

If you watch the Star Wars movies closely, none of the weapons work the way they are supposed to, and football is kind of the same way. It is very difficult to produce a rout on command.

As always, this author does not bet because the oddsmakers are known to be smarter than me, but my reaction is that there is an advantage to the coach’s team in cases like this. I look for Kirk Cousins and Tom Brady to make a few subtle errors on Sunday and to face the defensive formations that they are the least effective against.

The game plan is probably worth a point or two in favor of the defenses for both Cleveland and New England.

One last take on the Tampa versus New England game. Perhaps the real story is not that Brady and Belichick split. Unitas left Baltimore. Namath left New York. Montana left San Francisco. Favre left Green Bay.

So what? The amazing story is that Belichick and Brady stayed together as long as they did. There was no feud. Brady is getting old, it’s just a question of how fast and when the right time is to leave. Brady has lasted longer than the experts thought possible, including his coach, so congratulations. That does not mean that his coach hates him. The fact is, no duo of coach and quarterback ever stayed together nearly that long before.

If Belichick misjudged Brady’s useful service life by a few years, it’s even more impressive for Brady, but not a surprising or wrongful action by his coach.