Other than AZ they aren't playing anyone with much fire power until Week 5. And then the real hard games show up one after another after another.
Bengals, Steelers, Seahawks, Ravens, Seahawks and Broncos. Not to mention the Jets on the road may be a hard one too.
There is a 9 game stretch where they play all of those games plus the Rams defense will be coming to town the week before they play BAL and DNV so they may not have time to recover from the beating Donald and Co. will be administering.
Timing is everything, and while Brady's suspension is during the cream puff part of the schedule the Patriots have some hard games coming up. They are gonna get tested.