You've admitted you follow football at only the superficial level, so I'd back off on making predictions. Even with the loss of Brady, they have an excellent O-Line, WR corps, good running backs, and a good defense. This isn't the Bengals from a few years ago, who were deficient on offense when they weren't throwing the ball and had no defense. They've been down graded from an elite team to a very good. Looking at their schedule, it would not shock me to see them win 10 or 11 games.