After Week 2 might be the point in any given NFL season when we feel like we know the least about what we are seeing. Many of the sweeping conclusions we landed on (despite our best efforts not to) after Week 1 have been upended. The effect of injuries is starting to take hold. And we are rubbing our eyes to make sure we are really seeing the things we didn’t expect to happen—like the suddenly resurgent Derek Carr and the Raiders? What’s more, this year we can’t even take comfort in the annual trotting out of the bleak odds of 0–2 teams making the playoffs, as the 17-game season has thrown our math into chaos.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, there was still lots to be gleaned from Week 2!
1. The Buccaneers’ record streak of nine straight games with 30 or more points (basically) coincides with Tom Brady’s taking over the Bucs’ offense. The streak began in Week 15 of the 2020 season. Brady and Bruce Arians had what the head coach called a “melding of the minds” during their Week 13 bye. “If you don’t like it, we’re throwing it out,” Arians told Brady during the hour-long phone call that left both men hopeful. But the melding was much more significant than the hate it-like it-love it assessment that many coaches use when developing game plans with their QBs. “The areas of the field that we’re trying to put levels on were a little bit different than what he is used to,” Arians told me and Greg Bishop before the Super Bowl. Arians’s system often had receivers breaking at three levels. Brady was used to high-low reads. “For us it was easy to say, this was supposed to be on the left hash; we'll move your reception areas all to the right hash, because it makes it easier for you to see them coming into your vision,” Arians said. “And it's just really, really simple things, creating plays that are exactly the same [but] that look different to the next team.” The results showed up first in practice, where there were very few balls on the ground. Then in the second half of last year’s Week 15 win against Atlanta, all the way through the Super Bowl and now into this season. The Bucs haven’t lost since handing over the keys to Brady, and this Week 2’s 48–25 win against the Falcons broke the previous NFL record for consecutive games of 30 points or more, held by … the Brady Patriots.
