Bell: Tom Brady makes Bill Belichick look like a genius

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Bill Belichick must be living right.

With just under three minutes on the clock at Gillette Stadium on Sunday, the New England Patriots coach dismissed the odds, cursed the football gods and pretty much took a torch to the conventional coaching manual.

He went for it on fourth-and-6 from his own 24.

Incomplete.

BOX SCORE: Patriots 30, Saints 27

That could have finished the Patriots for the day, and left the three-time Super Bowl-winning coach open for some serious second-guessing about his gambling ways.

Yet after an improbable, last-gasp 30-27 win vs. the previously unbeaten New Orleans Saints, it is apparent that in a time of need, Belichick can still place a bet on Tom Brady — and more often than not reap a winning hand.

"Guys made big-time catches," Brady said. "It was just a great game."

Brady made Belichick look like a genius again with his last-minute magic on the game-winning drive at the finish, won with a 17-yard touchdown strike to rookie Kenbrell Thompkins with five seconds on the clock -- and the stands half-empty.

"That's what he does, that's what he's paid to do," Belichick said afterward.

He could have also added that Brady bailed out his coach, big-time.

That's not to diminish Belichick's sterling plan and adroit adjustments. The Patriots came out of the gate and built a 10-point halftime lead with a no-huddle offense. The defensive scheme took away the biggest weapon, Jimmy Graham, who came into the game as the NFL leader for receiving yards.

It seemed simple enough with cornerback Aqib Talib blanketing Graham. Then Talib left in the third quarter with a hip injury. Plan B: Devin McCourty, next man (-to-man) up.

Graham's final stat line: Zero catches, zero yards.

No, Rob Gronkowski -- yet to return from his offseason back and forearm surgeries -- wasn't the only high-profile tight end missing in action.

It still came down to Brady, a week after the once-vaunted offense produced all of six points at Cincinnati in Brady's worst game in seven years.

This, after Brady's pick on underthrown pass to Julian Edelman -- "Bad read, not a good throw," he said -- seemed to doom the Patriots as the previous fourth-down decision might have,

But he hung tough. He's Brady. He's been there, done that.

He's the glue to the 5-1 record, achieved without Gronkowski or any of the other targets that were there last season, the reason they will still likely have a chance to still be in the hunt in January.