I'm pretty sure there will be a 2020 NFL season but more then likely they will have to play some games in empty stadiums especially in LA and NY.  The Bucs are legit contenders in the NFC.  The Patriots will probably be no better then 6-10 the Bills will easily win the AFC East and should be better then the Patriots for some time to come. 

The USFL first two seasons where actually pretty good but in the third season attendance dropped dramatically and ended up loosing 163 million during its existence.

Perhaps the Bills win the East, but come on, 6-10 for the Patriots? They were easily the #1 defense in the league last year, and virtually the entire starting roster on that side of the ball is back. That alone sets the floor at 8 wins, imo. Throw in still having the greatest coach of all time and the best special teams in the league, and I think 10-11 wins is still very attainable.

Obviously losing Brady hurts, no one will dispute that. But let's also not forget that since the Brady/Belichick era began, the Patriots are 13-6 in games that Brady hasn't started. The NFL's certainly unpredictable, so I'll never call anything in this league impossible, but probably 6-10 or worse feels like an insult for a team that returns most of what was the league's best defense last year. It's worth noting that you have to go all the way back to 2010 to find a team with the best defense that missed the playoffs, and that only happened because the team with the best defense that year (the Chargers) lost five games because their special teams allowed a touchdown or a blocked punt that served as the margin of victory. Despite all of that, that team still won 9 games.

Throw in the league's best special teams, and the fact that New England is still being run by the most successful coach in NFL history, and I'd personally be very surprised if they finish below .500.

Easily #1 Defense? By the end of the year they were pretty badly exposed, and it was more fitting to call them a top 5 defense at best. You can say they had the best secondary, and maybe still do, but they were shown to be a defense that's mostly great in situational football and could never stop the run.

"Virtually the entire starting roster on that side of the ball is back." Have you actually paid any attention to player transactions?

"Since the Brady/Belichick era began, the Patriots are 13-6." Convenient that you said the 'Brady/Belichick' era, and not just the Belichick era, otherwise you'd have to add an extra 5-11 season. And that's doing him a service because it doesn't include the Browns years.
Are you gonna mention how he went 11-5 with Matt Cassel? A roster that was 3mins away from being perfect the previous year, and then didn't make the playoffs, with a QB who went on to make a Pro Bowl 2 years laters with the Chiefs and have a statistically better season.
Were you also gonna mention that every QB that's played a full season for Belichick has been a Pro Bowler at some point, but the only one to make the Pro Bowl with Belichick was Tom Brady? Two of them were also former no.1 picks.

Honestly, it just keeps getting more clear how delusional you are. I'm not even trying to disprove that Bill Belichick is the best coach in the league, because he is. But when you look at how hard it was for the Steelers to win 8 games last year with arguably the second best coach in the league, and right now the Patriots aren't as good or talented on either side of the ball, just looking at the team on paper. No one can win games alone (especially if they're not even on the field), and you should've realised that by now.
This isn't even taking into account that it just wouldn't be smart for the Patriots to win games next season, when they really should be jockeying for the best possible draft position to get a QB. Or do you actually believe Jarret Stidham is the future?

I mean, it wasn't bad enough that you spent the whole of last season in denial, but here you are still in denial, believing the Patriots can still get away with not having to rebuild after 20 years, even after the cornerstone of the team has left.
You should be more concerned about whether Belichick has enough years left in him to successfully rebuild the team, and hopefully get a new era started for the next coach on the right track. And a lot of that will be probably be down to luck, just like it was the first time round.

Ah, how I missed you and your lovely penchant for dismissing anyone who disagrees with you as delusional or in denial.

>Easily #1 Defense? By the end of the year they were pretty badly exposed

Over the final seven games of the season, they only gave up more than 350 yards in a game once. They forced more than one turnover a game. They never allowed a team to reach 30 points, and only two teams surpassed 24. All of those measures are best in the NFL. So, yes, easily #1 defense in the league. The 49ers, widely regarded as the second best defense in the league for comparison's sake, gave up 350 yards in a game or more twice times (as well as 348 yards once), 400 yards once, 30 points or more twice, and forced "only" one turnover per game. The only games in which they were "exposed," as you put it, were Baltimore (who exposed just about everyone up until the playoffs) and the Derrick Henry palooza, which given what he did to both Baltimore and KC (at least before Vrabel just decided to stop running the ball), I'm not too embarrassed about either.

>Have you actually paid any attention to player transactions?

..have you? Assuming the Patriots stick with their 3-4 scheme (which, again, things can change depending on personnel), last year's starters were J. McCourty, D. McCourty, Gilmore, Chung, Hightower, Collins, Simon, Van Noy, Guy, Winovich, and Shelton. We return 8 of those 11 starters. That's pretty damn close to keeping the entirety of your statistically best defense in the league back. And most of the holes can be filled by players who played significant time last year while not in a starting position.

>"Since the Brady/Belichick era began, the Patriots are 13-6." Convenient that you said the 'Brady/Belichick' era, and not just the Belichick era, otherwise you'd have to add an extra 5-11 season. And that's doing him a service because it doesn't include the Browns years.

This argument gets wheeled out so often that it's quite frankly tiresome. Yes, Belichick had a rough start to his career in New England. But, for the love of God, that was 20 fucking years ago, in his first year with a new team. One would think there just might be some difference in how well someone performs after being with a team for not even a full season vs. being with a team for 8 or 16 years. Or, for that matter, how someone coaches two decades ago versus now.

>Are you gonna mention how he went 11-5 with Matt Cassel? A roster that was 3mins away from being perfect the previous year, and then didn't make the playoffs, with a QB who went on to make a Pro Bowl 2 years laters with the Chiefs and have a statistically better season.

...so your argument is that Belichick's teams are worse without the best QB of all time? Man, there's a surprise.

The point isn't that the 08 Patriots didn't suffer from not having Brady; it's that he was able to keep the team afloat with an inexperienced QB who had never started a game before. Sure, they missed the playoffs, but they won 11 games, and only missed the playoffs due to incredibly unfortunate luck. And, yes, that is quite impressive imo. Compare it to something like the 2011 Colts, who went from 11-5 with Peyton Manning to 2-14 without him. Your coach and how well they've prepared is extremely important in keeping a team afloat in a scenario where your best player is no longer available.

>But when you look at how hard it was for the Steelers to win 8 games last year with arguably the second best coach in the league, and right now the Patriots aren't as good or talented on either side of the ball, just looking at the team on paper.

You're...absolutely crazy if you think the Steelers' probable 2020 defense is as good as the Patriots. The Patriots are better at every single secondary position than the Steelers. Gilmore is better than Haden. J McCourty is better than Nelson. D. McCourty is better than Fitzpatrick. Chung is easily better than...Terrell Edmunds or whoever ends up as the Steelers' second safety. Bentley is better than Bush. Guy is better than Tuitt. Wise is better than Wormley.

The only positions that the Steelers potentially outdo the Patriots on defense is LB1 with Watt vs. Hightower, and DL #2 with Heyward vs. whoever the Patriots end up starting there (probably Allen). And Watt vs. Hightower is, at the very worst, close. New England's defense, especially the secondary, is far superior to Pittsburgh's.

>This isn't even taking into account that it just wouldn't be smart for the Patriots to win games next season, when they really should be jockeying for the best possible draft position to get a QB. Or do you actually believe Jarret Stidham is the future?

I'd like to see him play in a real game before making a judgement on that. He's showed promise in preseason against starting lineups, but that is obviously preseason. I wouldn't bet on him being "the future," but I'm also not going to rule it out, either. Given your status as a...what are you now, a Tampa fan since Tom's moved there? A guy with a weird desire to only cheer for a single player? Whatever the case...I would imagine you of all people should know that late round picks shouldn't immediately be dismissed.

>I mean, it wasn't bad enough that you spent the whole of last season in denial, but here you are still in denial, believing the Patriots can still get away with not having to rebuild after 20 years, even after the cornerstone of the team has left.

...what exactly was I in denial of? My team won 12 games with an offense so injured we would've embarrassed the 2013 squad. Yeah, playoffs didn't end up how I hoped, but that's life in the NFL. 2009 and 2010 teams met a similar fate, and I don't think predicting a win then would've been "denial" either.

I'm happy with the Broncos first pick. I was hoping for Jeudy or Lamb and they got Jeudy. I think Lamb has more big play ability but Denver already has Sutton for that, Jeudy is a more well rounded rookie.

Regarding the Patriots returning their elite defense, it will be interesting to see if they fare better against what should be a tougher schedule without nearly as many cupcake quarterbacks. And we did see them get exposed and kind of crumble midway through the season. They went into the Ravens game allowing under 8 points a game and then played five straight decent to great offenses and gave up double digit points in four of the five games, went 2-3 in that stretch and also gave up double digit points in their last three games, all to some of the worst offenses in football last season.

They started the season off against such horrid competition, it kind of set them up to finish as an elite ranked defense though. I mean they played Luke Faulk, Fitz/Rosen, Darnold, Jones, Mayfield, and Colt McCoy. The only good QB was Big Ben in his only game of the season in the opener. And who can really even say if Ben is still good. They gave up 200 rushing yards to the Titans in a game where Henry rushed it over 30 times. They knew exactly what was coming and still couldn't stop it. Not the calling of a really elite defense. They're good, but they have plenty of holes.

Of course, playing in the AFC Least, they'll still have six easy games on defense per year by default, barring some huge leap in play by Sam Darnold or Josh Allen. But they do also have KC, Baltimore, Houston, and the NFC West on the schedule, which includes three quality offenses. I doubt they'll finish #1 again.

I mean, giving up double digit points is...kind of to be expected in the NFL, even for great defenses. Even the incredible 2015 Broncos defense gave up double digit points in 15 of the 16 games they played, and all three of their playoff games. You have to go back to some of the truly all time greats to find teams that were repeatedly preventing teams from scoring past single digits, like the 2013 Seahawks or 2000 Ravens. And, even in those cases, most of those games were against teams with bad quarterbacks. In this day and age, with the rules skewed towards offense as much as they are, you're not going to be consistently holding teams under ten points without the offense not playing up to snuff too.

But that's kind of my point about talking about the second half of the season; even if you just look at the second half, the Patriots were still #1 in most statistical categories. They were #1 in yards allowed, #1 in points allowed, #1 in turnovers forced. Did they have a few bad performances? Absolutely. Even though it doesn't get factored into the general team statistics since the NFL doesn't include postseason games, the Tennessee game wasn't a great look (although Henry did tear up the best regular season team in the league the next week and the eventual Super Bowl champs until Mike Vrabel decided to stop running the ball). But the same can be said of, well, any good defense last year. The 49ers defense got shredded for 465 yards by the Saints. The Bills got 414 yards put up on them by that awful Patriots offense of last year, and 426 by the Cowboys. The Ravens had their own dismal performance against Derrick Henry. The Steelers gave up 400 yards three weeks in a row. 

Those are the other four best defenses in the league by yards allowed from last season, and each of them has at least one performance (usually more) that make them look nothing like an elite defense. Maybe we had a year last season where there weren't any "elite" defenses. Maybe that's how the league just is now with all the concessions to offense. Either way, two bad performances don't break a claim for best defense of 2019 imo.

"Ah, how I missed you and your lovely penchant for dismissing anyone who disagrees with you as delusional or in denial." If you think I'm just randomly dismissing you as delusional or in denial, how about you start with every case where you actually came out on the right side? Maybe my memory's getting bad, but I'm pretty sure I was the one coming here pretty early in the season, saying that the Patriots were glaringly short on weapons (after they'd cut them all) and it wasn't going to bode well. This was before they had played the Ravens or even lost a game. Even though they'd spank teams like the Browns, the Browns were still running all over them, but would end up shooting themselves in the foot with careless ball control. Once the cracks started to show, it only got worse as the season wore on. But you, Mr. Head In The Sand, just kept waffling on about how everything would just work out through the magic of Belichick & Brady.

"Given your status as a...what are you now, a Tampa fan since Tom's moved there? A guy with a weird desire to only cheer for a single player?" Since when is it weird to be a fan of one player? Do you think everyone that started watching the NBA for Michael Jordan is a Bulls fan to this day? It's not like I desire to only be a fan of one player, but I'm not gonna feign allegiance to some team I have no affinity for. I don't live in America, so I can't be a fan of a home state team or even a close neighboring state team.
I started watching the NFL because of Tom Brady, and I just happened to discover that I also love watching the sport. But I was never gonna claim to be a fan of the Patriots if I hadn't followed them for long enough or felt enough reason to, just like I'm not a fan of the Bucs now. I'll obviously be following them though, and while Brady is their QB I'll root for them to win, but that's really it.

I didn't realise getting embarrassed at home on Wild Card Weekend is considered ok in New England now, as long as you can win 12 games. Seeing how hard that might be in the near future, maybe it's not bad that you're starting to lower expectations. Though based on the fact you still seem to believe the status quo is intact and the Patriots can still run the AFC East, maybe it's more that you're trying really hard to look at the glass half full, when everyone else can see there's nothing left in it.

But you, Mr. Head In The Sand, just kept waffling on about how everything would just work out through the magic of Belichick & Brady.

Ah, and now we've moved onto personal insults. Again, lovely.

If you want to play the "who's more delusional about football" game, then we can, although given that you blamed the Patriots management for not spending money on Trent Brown, despite the fact that he had been offered $66 million to play for Oakland at the time and New England literally didn't even have the cap space to match, or that you stated one post ago that Pittsburgh's defense looked better than New England's on paper, I'm not sure that's a contest you want to have.

Since when is it weird to be a fan of one player?

It's very abnormal/uncanny to be a fan of a singular player versus a team. Not unheard of, obviously, but certainly not common. If you don't believe me, then take a poll from any large group of NFL fans, and see how many people are fans of a team versus fans of a player. That should tell you all you need to know.

I didn't realise getting embarrassed at home on Wild Card Weekend is considered ok in New England now, as long as you can win 12 games.

There's a difference between saying it's "ok" versus saying "the sky is falling and everything has gone to shit."

Take 2009 for instance, when the Patriots actually did get embarrassed on Wild Card weekend rather than losing by one possession. Obviously that's a result that no one wants to repeat. But that doesn't mean you immediately write the team off as hopeless. Similarly, losing at home in the wild card last year isn't ideal by any stretch of the imagination. But losing before the AFC Championship for the first time in a decade doesn't mean you just give up on the team as it stands. There's an incredibly strong defense, quality special teams, and with David Andrews returning and Isaiah Wynn healthy, a very talented offensive line.

That isn't a team composition that you immediately press reboot on without at least trying to see if you can develop something with. At least give Stidham a shot, especially given the amount of confidence New England seems to have in him. See if Sanu, Meyers, etc. can fit into the team given an offseason to heal and become more familiar with the playbook. There's a middle ground between being fine with something and also throwing all your toys out of the pram.

https://www.patspulpit.com/2019/2/16/18227266/pats-off-season-making-the-case-for-the-franchise-tagging-of-trent

https://larrybrownsports.com/football/patriots-trent-williams-trade-using-money-saved-on-brady/507655

"They chose not to use the franchise tag on Trent Brown this offseason, and he signed a massive contract with the Oakland Raiders. Brown was New England’s left tackle last season, but the Patriots did not prioritize keeping him since they will be getting 2018 first-round pick Isaiah Wynn back after he missed his rookie season with a torn Achilles. Wynn has not been able to participate in full at training camp this year, and he has never appeared in an NFL game."

Are we gonna keep playing this game? I'm already 1-for-1. I wouldn't be against you making a poll to ask people who they believe will have the better defense this season, and then seeing how the teams actually pan out. I mean you're pretty confident in your team, right? They kept '"vrtually the entire starting roster on that side of the ball", and if they're that good, there's nothing to worry about right?