No one in the employ of the New England Patriots was willing to talk about the departed Richard Seymour on Monday, but while most commentators are amazed at how decisively the Pats seem to have fleeced the Raiders over the weekend, there is much concern over the amount of turnover on the defensive side of the ball for the New England team. The Patriots' defense might end up fine -- but if it is to struggle, the early weeks of the season could be dangerous times.

In 2003, the Patriots let Lawyer Milloy go just before the start of the season, and were promptly destroyed by the Buffalo Bills, 31-0, on the road in Week 1. The Patriots ended that season 14-2, they pitched shutouts in three of the final seven games of the regular season, and they won the Super Bowl. Oh, and they ended up allowing the fewest points of any of the NFL's 32 teams.

This season, the Patriots begin at home against Buffalo, and for a team with some work to do to get up to speed on the defensive side of the ball, there could hardly be a better opponent. New England will ride the enthusiasm of a fired-up home crowd on Monday night and will be playing a team the Pats have beaten 11 straight times. And conveniently, the Bills are going through just as much turmoil on offense as the Patriots are on defense. Buffalo on Friday fired its offensive coordinator, Turk Schonert, handing the play-calling duties to quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt. They're trying to implement a no-huddle offense -- and struggling along to do it. Top running back Marshawn Lynch is suspended for this game and veteran Dominic Rhodes has been cut, leaving the ball-carrying duties to promising but inexperienced Fred Jackson.

Jackson will have to get yards running behind an offensive line that has lost two-time Pro Bowler Jason Peters and veteran Derrick Dockery. Just yesterday, the Bills released starting left tackle Langston Walker, and brought back a lineman (Kirk Chambers) who had just been cut last week.

Certainly, the Bills have a stable of talented receivers (led now by Terrell Owens) who could pose problems for the Patriots' secondary, but Owens' absence for much of the preseason means that he and Trent Edwards have had a lot of time to get to know each other. Edwards and the first-team offense scored three points in 15 preseason drives.

All of which weighs heavily in favor of the Patriots' running their win streak against Buffalo to 12 games on Monday night. And a peek at the schedule gives more reasons to be encouraged about the new defense's adjustment period. In Week 2, the Patriots face the Jets, who have some good offensive players but will start a rookie quarterback (Mark Sanchez) who could be vulnerable against a Bill Belichick team. The Atlanta Falcons will be tough customers in Week 3, but then the Pats face four consecutive teams (the Ravens, Broncos, Titans and Bucs) who all project to have mediocre offenses this season.

Then comes the bye week, and tougher challenges ahead. By that point, we should have a lot of answers about how good this new, younger Patriots defense could be.

-Aaron Wilson of the National Football Post quotes Jets head coach Rex Ryan as saying that in no way did New York trade for Kevin O'Connell so that they could quiz O'Connell about the New England offense.

-ESPN.com has made the Patriots strong favorites to win the AFC East. How strong? All 16 of the experts whose predictions are listed on the site today pick the Pats to win the division. Only five of them, though, have the Pats winning the AFC (and all five of those say that the Patriots will also win the Super Bowl). Seven of the 16 like the Steelers to repeat as champs.

-The Pats are second to Pittsburgh in the first ESPN.com power rankings.

-Seymour still has not reported to the Raiders, but he is listed (without a number) on the roster posted on the team web site.

-Seymour's agent, Eugene Parker, is the most powerful man on the Bay Area football scene (we know it's not any of the players anyway), according to SI.com's Ann Killion. Not only are the Raiders waiting for one of his clients to report, the 49ers are dealing with Parker in the Michael Crabtree saga.

-Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski says he was very impressed by the work turned in Thursday night by rookie long-snapper Jake Ingram.

-He has a big job to do in Oakland, but past Raiders coaches John Madden, Tom Flores and Jon Gruden say that Tom Cable has a chance to bring the franchise back to respectability and maybe even beyond.

-More ominous news on the labor front: the Redskins' interim union representative, Ethan Albright, says he has told the players to plan on not playing in 2011: "If you've got big expenses on the horizon, think about putting them off."

-Tough start to the Todd Haley era in Kansas City: The Chiefs went 0-4 in the preseason, which means that they are an unbelievable 4-29 in regular-season and preseason action since October 2007.

-Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton yesterday threw his first passes since dislocating his finger in exhibition action yesterday, but head coach Josh McDaniels wasn't ready to say that Orton would start Sunday's opener at Cincinnati.

-The Tennessee Titans, who went 13-3 but lost to the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Divisional Playoff, say nothing short of the Super Bowl will be satisfactory for them this season. The Titans will have an excellent chance to show whether they are serious contenders on Thursday night, when they visit the defending champion Steelers in the first game of the season.

-Meanwhile, the Houston Texans are still looking to make the postseason for the first time in their eight seasons of existence.

-Head coach Jim Caldwell is trying to put his stamp on the Colts by taking a tougher approach with players -- calling them out publicly when he thinks necessary -- in a marked depature from the approach of his predecessor, Tony Dungy.

-The board of supervisors for Los Angeles County has ordered its lobbyists to work against a possible change in state law that could ease environmental and planning regulations for a 75,000-seat football stadium in the city of Industry, Calif. The proposed $800-million project could lead to the return of NFL football in the country's second-largest city.

-The former casino worker accusing Ben Roethlisberger of sexual assault will drop her civil suit if the Steelers quarterback admits that he raped her and apologizes, says the woman's attorney. Not surprisingly Roethlisberger -- whose legal team is requesting that the woman drop her charges and apologize to him -- will not go along with the offer.

-The lawyer for Tila Tequila, the former bisexual-dating-show-star, says that Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman is engaging in character assault by saying that Merriman's arrest resulted from his attempts to protect her from leaving his home in a drunken state. "It is never justifiable to brutally assault, choke, strike and imprison a woman," Alan S. Gutman wrote in a statement. Merriman says he never harmed the woman, who is also known as Tila Nguyen, and who weighs 93 pounds (compared to Merriman's 270).

-Chargers GM A.J. Smith has declined to give any assurance that Merriman will be with the team throughout this season.