6 Things I Learned From Week 3 of the NFL Season

The Patriots Offense Is Average

Entering Week 3, the New England Patriots ranked third-to-last in Adjusted Net Expected Points (NEP), with a score of -12.10. To put this another way, if, say, New England had Denver's offense (37.76 Adjusted NEP) through two weeks, we would expect a point swing in the Patriots favor of almost 50. That's 25 per game. Wowza.

Oakland visited Foxborough this week, and despite ranking as an average defensive unit to start the year, the thought was that Tom Brady and company would roll all over them. That wasn't the case.

Tom Brady hasn't been Tom Brady this year. He's ranked as the fourth-worst starting quarterback in the league according to our metrics, and although he was serviceable against the Raiders and hasn't thrown a pick yet this season, his completion percentage and yards per attempt average are both much lower than what he's done throughout his career.

Julian Edelman has been his usual self, but the rest of the offense has been pretty up-and-down to start the year. Hopefully a healthier Rob Gronkwoski will help as the season gets older.