FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Patriots returned home Sunday on a three-game winning streak following big wins the previous two weeks in Los Angeles and Carolina. They are 4-0 on the road this season, and players say part of the reason is that the road stadiums in which they’ve played have been pretty packed with Patriots fans.

“It’s been great,” tight end Hunter Henry told me a few days ago. “Pats Nation has really traveled well.”

But until Sunday, the 2021 version of the Patriots hadn’t given the home fans much to cheer about. The Patriots were 1-4 at home heading into Sunday’s game against Cleveland, and after the opening drive of the game, they trailed the Browns 7-0.

Then they scored 45 points in a row.

Don’t look now, but the Patriots are the hottest NFL team this side of the Grand Ole Opry. They’ve won four games in a row and five out of six since their 1-3 start. Their rookie quarterback looks better every week. Their defense is suffocating teams. They’re having an absolutely wonderful time with each other, and there was no better evidence of that than the way the entire bench celebrated the first touchdown catch of Jakobi Meyers‘ career late in Sunday’s blowout. For goodness’ sake, Bill Belichick couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.

“We have a bunch of new guys that are together for the first time,” Henry told me when I asked about the reason for the turnaround. “A young quarterback. I think we were all learning and had to go through some growing pains we didn’t want to go through, but we did it together.”

Right now, they look to be better for it. A half-game behind Buffalo in the AFC East with both head-to-head matchups still to play, the Patriots look downright dangerous as an AFC contender. And a big part of the reason is the rookie who was the fifth quarterback taken in April’s draft and leads off our Week 10 overreactions.

Mac Jones has the Offensive Rookie of the Year award locked up

Jones threw three touchdown passes in Sunday’s victory. He was 6-for-7 for 80 yards and a touchdown on third downs alone. Overall, he was 19-for-23 for 198 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. He took a couple of sacks but was nearly flawless in a very important game. It might have been the best game of his career so far, but if you’ve been watching the Patriots lately, it didn’t feel out of place.

“He’s just been improving every game, every week, every day in practice, really,” Henry told me. “It’s impressive to see, but it has everything to do with his commitment to getting better.”

The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. It’s likely between Jones and Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, and I think the history of this award shows that a wide receiver would have to be waaaaaaay better than a similarly qualified quarterback to win it. The last wideout to take home OROY? Odell Beckham Jr. in 2014, when the top three quarterbacks picked in the draft were Blake Bortles, Johnny Manziel and Teddy Bridgewater.

If Jones really does keep getting better as the season goes along, and if the Patriots make the playoffs in his rookie season — especially if they beat out favored Buffalo for the division title — it’s going to be tough to deny him the award. The Patriots’ remaining schedule, outside of those two Buffalo games, offers the opportunity for Jones to put up some numbers. And the two Buffalo games offer him the opportunity to look like a prime-time performer. Right now, he’s on track to win the award.

Cam Newton will lead the Panthers to the playoffs

Sunday was Newton’s first game back with the Panthers since 2019. It came a handful of days after he re-signed with Carolina as a street free agent in the wake of the Sam Darnold injury. Newton did not start the game at quarterback; P.J. Walker did, and Walker actually played pretty well. Newton carried the ball three times and threw four passes. But dang, it felt like his impact was greater than that.

The Panthers’ first touchdown was a 2-yard Newton run. Their second was a 2-yard Newton pass to Robby Anderson. From there, they built a 23-0 halftime lead en route to 34-10 victory over an Arizona team with the best record in the league. (Which, yeah, was playing its second game in a row without its starting quarterback, but played pretty well in the first one.)

The win evened Carolina’s record at 5-5, and if the season ended today it would be the No. 7 seed in the NFC playoffs.

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Cam Newton gets a rushing touchdown on his first touch, then throws for a touchdown to Robby Anderson on his second touch.

The verdict: OVERREACTION. Hey, crazier things have certainly happened. The Panthers have a strong defense and a bunch of good players. They’re a game-and-a-half behind first-place Tampa Bay, and they still play the Bucs twice.

The reason the Panthers signed Newton was because they felt they had a good enough team that they could make the playoffs with competent quarterback play. With Newton’s experience, he certainly brings competence at the very least. Their next three games are against teams with losing records, and they could keep things going for a little while. But seven Cam touches in an emotional return game is different from two months of Cam as starting quarterback. And while those next three games are against teams with losing records, the four that follow are against the Bills, Bucs, Saints and Bucs again.

Believe me, I’d love to see Newton pull this off. Would be a great story. But we’d have to see a lot more from him than we have in the past couple of years.

Baker Mayfield is not the Browns’ long-term answer at quarterback

Is there a more unpredictable team than the Browns? One week world-beaters, the next week noncompetitive. Consistency eludes them, and no, you can’t blame a 45-7 loss on the absence of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt. They ran the ball just fine on their opening drive and appeared to have a solid game plan against the Pats. But Mayfield threw an interception on their second drive and they fell completely apart after that.

For the game, Mayfield was 11-for-21 for 73 yards, a touchdown and an interception. He sustained a knee injury in the second half and didn’t come back in the game, though the score and the fact that he stood on the sideline while Case Keenum took it the rest of the way indicate that the injury might not have been the sole reason he didn’t reenter.

The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. We’ve seen Mayfield perform at a level that indicates he can be the long-term answer for a team that has high hopes to compete annually for a title. Problem is, we’ve also seen games like Sunday. And there comes a point, when figuring out whether you want to commit to a quarterback long term, that consistency (or lack thereof) becomes the key factor in the decision.

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Baker Mayfield has some trouble getting back to his feet after a jarring hit from Matthew Judon in the third quarter.

Mayfield is unquestionably playing hurt. He has shoulder problems, knee problems — I watched him hobble down the hallway postgame to and from the X-ray machine, and it hurt to watch. But he’s playing, and he’s not using injuries as an excuse.

The Browns picked up his fifth-year option, so they have him through next season no matter what. But if he’s looking for a big-time, top-end quarterback contract, he’s going to have to show he can play at a high level for a long, consistent period of time. This year was a big opportunity for him to do that, and he hasn’t so far.

The Chiefs’ problems are solved

Kansas City dominated the division-rival Raiders on Sunday night 41-14 to take sole possession of first place in the AFC West. Yeah, the Chiefs, the team (as you’ve heard all season, sometimes correctly!) that doesn’t look like its old self and has a slew of issues that will keep it from reaching its third straight Super Bowl. Those Chiefs are 6-4, in first place by themselves in a very tough division and, through Week 10, hold the No. 4 seed in the AFC playoffs.

Patrick Mahomes, about whom you’ve been told (often correctly!) that he’s turning the ball over way too much and not taking enough of what the defense is giving him, leads the NFL in passing yards after a 406-yard, five-touchdown performance in which he didn’t turn it over once. And that was against a team that played him very tough last year and looked to be having a sustainably strong season this year. We should all have such problems, right?

The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. If all you watched was last night’s game, you’d think to yourself that everybody had been making it all up. Mahomes and Andy Reid were downright responsible with how they moved the ball. No, they didn’t exactly commit to the run (this is Andy Reid, after all), but they did the next-best thing, which was throw it to their running backs. Darrel Williams had nine catches for 101 yards and a touchdown. Mahomes took what was in front of him all night, content to move the ball in the shorter, midrange portion of the field to Williams and Travis Kelce. He found Tyreek Hill for two touchdowns that covered a grand total of nine yards. Of Kansas City’s 422 passing yards, 254 came after the catch, which was the second most by any NFL team in a game this season and the Chiefs’ second most since Mahomes joined the team in 2017.

If they can commit to playing like this, and if the much-maligned defense can continue the success it has quietly had the past few weeks, then the Chiefs should be fine. Are they out of the woods? No way. They still have a brutal remaining schedule that features not one single game against a team that currently has a losing record. And one turnover-free game does not mean Mahomes won’t turn it over again all season. But the Chiefs on Sunday night finally looked like a team that understands what it has to do to win games. If it can repeat that, then there’s no reason to believe Kansas City can’t hold off the rest of the teams in its division, the best of which they just absolutely clobbered.

The Buccaneers aren’t going to win the NFC, let alone the Super Bowl

Coming off a bye and playing one of the most disappointing teams in the league, the defending Super Bowl champs lost to Washington 29-19 on Sunday. It was Tampa Bay’s second loss in a row, and a major factor was the two early interceptions Tom Brady threw as the Bucs were falling behind. It was the second game in a row in which Brady was picked off twice, and the Bucs are definitely going through a very mortal-looking phase of their schedule.

It’s to the point already that coach Bruce Arians is ripping the team in news conferences again. Arians said after Sunday’s game, “We’re a very dumb football team,” before adding, “and that’s a reflection on the coaches.”

Tampa Bay is 6-3 and still a game in front of New Orleans in the NFC South. But four teams in the conference have more wins, and there’s only one bye to go around.

The verdict: OVERREACTION. Repeating is hard, and assuming the Bucs will do it just because they still have Brady and returned all of their starters would be a mistake. But so would assuming they’re cooked just because they lost a couple of games in a row midseason. Injuries are a big part of their problem, but at this point it seems as if Antonio Brown and Rob Gronkowski will return at some point and Chris Godwin won’t have to play hurt all season.

The Cowboys, Rams, Cardinals and Packers are all tough, and any or all of them could muscle out the Bucs in the NFC playoff field. But if last season didn’t teach us all not to count out Brady, I don’t know what ever will.

Every team has issues to overcome at some point in the season. The Bucs had them in 2020 and recovered just fine. To wit: This is the second time they’ve lost two games in a row with Brady as their quarterback. The first time was Weeks 11-12 of last season. They had the bye the following week and didn’t lose again until … well, this season. They aren’t going away anytime soon.