Bob Brookover: Storylines to monitor this NFL season

A new season of the most watched reality TV show in the country resumes Thursday night when Brady’s bunch the lying, cheating and perpetually winning New England Patriots begins defense of its fourth Super Bowl title of the 21st century against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

You want dysfunction? You’ll find it here within the NFL family. For most of the summer, Tom Brady was scheduled to serve a four-game suspension thrust upon him by commissioner Roger Goodell. It was the superstar quarterback’s punishment for his alleged role in the deflated balls controversy that erupted after New England’s AFC championship rout of the Indianapolis Colts last season.

It became the dominant story of the offseason and, like most of Brady’s opponents, the commissioner came out on the losing end. So Brady will be under center in Gillette Stadium for the NFL opener. Goodell, who usually attends the league’s opening game, will remain in his New York home. We can only assume he will be watching, but it will be difficult to see the action with his head buried between his legs.

Don’t be surprised if Deflategate serves as motivation for the Patriots to get back to the Super Bowl.

It will be good to get away from the dirty business of football and back to the games. The 2015 season should have plenty of intriguing plot lines beyond the Eagles, who might be the most interesting team in the world.

Here are a few of the story lines we will be following:

Ex-Eagle watch

LeSean McCoy was initially reluctant to shuffle off to Buffalo after being traded for linebacker Kiko Alonso, but his feelings changed when the Bills gave him a new contract that includes $16 million this season (counting his signing bonus) with a chance to make $40 million over five years. McCoy carried six times for just 16 yards in Buffalo’s preseason opener, then sat out the rest of the exhibition games with a left hamstring injury. The Bills say he’ll be ready for the season opener Sunday against Indianapolis. Circle Dec. 13 as the date he’ll return to Philadelphia for the game against the Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field.

We will watch all season to see how former Eagles quarterback Nick Foles performs after being traded to the St. Louis Rams for Sam Bradford. He struggled in his second preseason game with the Rams but rebounded by going 10 for 11 with a touchdown in his final tune-up before his season opener against Seattle.

Jeremy Maclin, the Eagles’ best receiver last season, has been reunited with coach Andy Reid in Kansas City, but his departure almost seemed like an afterthought with all that went on in Philadelphia. Two of the longest tenured Eagles Todd Herremans and Trent Cole are now in Indianapolis. Herremans will start. Cole will not.

One of the most fascinating things to watch will be the play of discarded cornerbacks Bradley Fletcher and Cary Williams. Fletcher is expected to start for the Patriots and Williams for the Seattle Seahawks. That’s two great teams taking on two players who absorbed the brunt of the blame for the Eagles’ defensive shortcomings a year ago.

Seahawks hangover?

Coach Pete Carroll’s team was one yard and one sensible play call away from winning a second straight Super Bowl. Instead, the Seahawks opted for a second-and-goal passing play that was intercepted by previously unknown rookie safety Malcolm Butler.

How will Seattle rebound from that devastating defeat? How will their dominating defense handle the losses of cornerback Byron Maxwell (now with the Eagles) and linebacker Malcolm Smith (Raiders) to free agency?

Only the Miami Dolphins in the 1970s and the Bills in the early 1990s have ever made three straight Super Bowl appearances. The Seahawks have enough defensive talent to become the third team to do it.

Peyton’s place

This will be Peyton Manning’s 18th season, and whenever a man plays the game that long it’s fair to wonder when he will retire. Manning, 39, played with a torn quadriceps muscle down the stretch last season and it clearly affected his play, but he reportedly showed up for training camp feeling great. His contract with the Broncos runs through next season.

The coaching carousel

Seven teams have new head coaches, including four guys who have held the top job in other places. Blustery Rex Ryan moved from the New York Jets to the Buffalo Bills and continued to talk smack. He was replaced by former Eagles defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, who lost starting quarterback Geno Smith to a training-camp locker room fight.

The Eagles will open against the Atlanta Falcons, who replaced Mike Smith with former Seattle defensive coordinator Dan Quinn. The last time the Eagles faced a Quinn defense they were stopped dead in their tracks. Atlanta, however, allowed more yards than any team in the NFL last season.

Jack Del Rio, the former Jacksonville coach who won one playoff game in nine years, became the 10th head coach in 15 seasons in Oakland as rumors continue to swirl that the Raiders will soon move to Los Angeles again.

The low-profile Jim Tomsula has replaced the high-profile Jim Harbaugh in San Francisco and it’s hard to imagine his first season going well after all that went wrong for the 49ers in the offseason.

John Fox reached the Super Bowl with Carolina and Denver, but he will have his work cut out for him in trying to rebuild the Chicago Bears, who were among the NFL’s most dysfunctional teams last season.

Fox was replaced by former Houston Texans coach Gary Kubiak. The success or failure of Kubiak probably resides on the good health of Manning.

The list of coaches most likely to be replaced either during or after the 2015 season includes Jay Gruden in Washington and Marvin Lewis in Cincinnati. Lewis, it seems, has been on this list every year for the last 10 seasons.

A.P. returns

The leading candidate for the comeback player of the year award has to be Adrian Peterson. After sitting out all but one game last season as he dealt with his disturbing child-abuse legal issue in Texas, the Vikings’ six-time Pro Bowl running back figures to be fresh and determined in 2015.

Rookies to watch

The two most-watched rookies will be quarterbacks Jameis Winston with Tampa Bay and Marcus Mariota with Tennessee. They went first and second in the draft and their careers will be compared for years to come. Both figure to struggle as rookies with bad teams.

Georgia’s Todd Gurley with the St. Louis Rams and Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon with the San Diego Chargers became the first running backs selected in the first round since 2012. The last two running backs to go in the first round Alabama’s Trent Richardson and Boise State’s Doug Martin have mostly been disappointing, although Martin did have a strong rookie season in Tampa Bay.

The prediction here is that wide receiver Amari Cooper, the fourth overall pick by the Raiders, will be the most exciting rookie in the league.

(c)2015 The Philadelphia Inquirer

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