I picked the Patriots as one-point underdogs at home despite having misgivings with third-stringer Jacoby Brissett starting against a tough Houston defense. On the one hand, the Texans should crush them on paper. On the other, they were traveling on a short week against a Bill-Belichick-coached team. Personnel vs. coaching and set-up. It's often a tough call. So you can imagine I was surprised to wake up this morning and see the final score. But maybe I shouldn't have been.

• I'm not the first to point this out, but if Bill Belichick can turn Jimmy Garoppolo into Tom Brady on the road in Arizona (look what the Cardinals did to Jameis Winston), win with a third-string rookie QB against an ostensibly strong defense and do all of this without Pro Football Focus' top-rated offensive player Rob Gronkowski (who played virtually no role last night), what can't he do? Put differently, if the 49ers were somehow able to hire Belichick in January, giving him enough time to get his system in place and coach up the players, their O/U would go from 4.5 to what? If you say eight, then he's roughly as valuable as the league's elite quarterbacks. And given how terrible so many coaches around the league are (Chuck Pagano, Ben McAdoo, Jim Caldwell, Mike Mularkey, Jason Garrett, Mike McCarthy), maybe Belichick's value above replacement is higher than that.

• When you consider how Ryan Tannehill lit up this same defense four days ago, Brock Osweiler's shoddy performance (4.8 YPA, zero points, one INT, two sacks) looks even worse.

• Lamar Miller continues to see volume at the expense of efficiency. That kind of trade-off was predictable, so there's not really cause for concern yet. The five targets and four catches are nice too.

• LeGarrette Blount has always been a huge, powerful back with good wheels once he gets up to full speed. The Patriots have a quality power runner they can use on the occasions they think he's their best bet. Once Brady comes back, he won't be quite as often.

• There's nothing to talk about in the Patriots passing game, as New England successfully hid Brissett, thanks to the Texans' ineffectiveness on offense.

• Ryan Griffin got 10 targets, so maybe he's on the TE radar.

• I'm glad I missed this game live and had to catch the condensed version on Rewind.