Can Jameis Winston be the fifth straight quarterback to gouge the New England defense?

Through four games, Tom Brady has the Patriots on a record-setting pace when it comes to passing offense. The problem is that his defense is making every other quarterback it faces look like, well, Tom Brady.

New England has the worst passing defense in the league, allowing opponents to post a 116.5 passer rating to start the season. Brady, despite leading the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns, has a 116.6 rating. In 2017, the Patriots are getting an unpleasant idea of what it’s like to face their own amazing quarterback, week in and week out.

That’s good news for Jameis Winston, who has had an uneven start to his third season with the Buccaneers. He’ll lead Tampa Bay into an important prime-time matchup with New England on Thursday Night Football.

Winston has led his team to a 2-1 start, but his team’s two wins have come against two of the NFC’s bottom feeders. The Buccaneers have beaten the 1-3 Bears and 0-4 Giants to begin their season, and that last win over New York didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Tampa needed a late field goal to claim victory over a team whose top runner — at least in terms of rushing touchdowns — is Eli Manning.

The young quarterback struggled against the one quality team he faced in 2017, throwing three bad interceptions against the Vikings in a 34-17 road loss. What’s even more troubling is how the Bucs defense performed. Tampa Bay allowed Case Keenum to have one of the greatest games of his career in Week 3, throwing for 369 yards and three touchdowns. If Keenum, Minnesota’s third choice at quarterback, can do that, Brady should be pretty optimistic about his chances for another big performance.

All signs point to a high-scoring affair, which would spice up an unbalanced string of Thursday night games. Week 3’s back-and-forth fireworks between the Rams and 49ers stand as an unexpected high point in a lineup that’s also included Texans-Bengals and Packers-Bears snoozers. With two high-powered offenses set to face off, NFL fans will have to hope Week 5’s game can recapture the magic of San Francisco-Los Angeles.

Pregame reading:

• The Patriots defense looks like a fatal flaw in the team’s quest to repeat as Super Bowl champs.

It’s a stunning turnaround for a team that boasts All-Pro defenders like Malcolm Butler, Dont’a Hightower, and Devin McCourty. The Patriots have made slumping passers look like a prime Peyton Manning while giving up more passing yards than anyone in the league. New England’s inability to get late stops cost the team victories over the Kansas City Chiefs and Carolina Panthers. Without Tom Brady’s fourth-quarter magic, it would have sunk the Pats against Houston as well.

• Doug Martin returns from suspension this week, and it could be just what a low-key rushing attack needs.

The veteran running back is finally done with his four-game suspension for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs. He went to rehab earlier this year, was a full participant this offseason, and looked good in preseason—so the Bucs are likely to give him his starting job back.

• The Patriots could make a trade to improve their defense, but it won’t fix what’s fundamentally wrong.

Thing is, what’s killing this defense and setting records (and not the good kind) isn’t a lack of talent. It’s the same thing that people have clowned on the Saints about for years. To hear the team tell it, the guys either don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing, or they all think they’re supposed to be doing something other than what they’re actually supposed to be doing...which, as you can guess, means that someone’s not doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

• Last week’s win over the Giants has the Buccaneers climbing the NFL power rankings.

The NFL doesn’t think the Bucs are that much better than they were last week, though. Understandable given the fact that that game was far too close for comfort—unnecessarily so, given the amount of points left on the field with missed kicks and red zone issues.

• Will moving Devin McCourty into Patrick Chung’s role improve the Patriot defense?

McCourty has played nearly every single defensive snap this year, including every snap over the past three weeks, while Chung has seen his snaps decline from 97 percent in Week 2 to 73 percent in Week 3 and just 54 percent against the Panthers.