Sometimes, you almost have to believe in omens. There are often signs from above that portend either good fortune or disaster, and it’s up to us to recognize them.And I don’t know what anybody else thinks, but the feeling here is that there’s been a surrealistic, almost sinister, undercurrent surrounding this New England Patriots team ever since a year ago this week, when reports first started surfacing that they’d been caught cheating.The only question in my mind was how far this symbolic reverse talisman would take them down. Would the loss of a Super Bowl they clearly should have won – especially after they’d sliced through the NFL like butter during the regular season – be punishment enough? Would the prolonged fallout from “Camera-gate” be punishment enough?Nope. Not enough. It was just the beginning.The true effects of Karmic Retribution have now been felt. Quarterback Tom Brady is gone for the year with a torn anterior cruciate ligament.It’s impossible to predict these things, of course, but I couldn’t help sensing that something extremely bad was going to happen to this team. The stars were in alignment for it.The whole preseason had a rather uneasy feeling about it, did it not? That mysterious injury to Brady’s foot? The lackluster play of the backups when it was obvious they were auditioning for the No. 2 spot?It almost seemed as if the whole thing was a ruse. Based on the way Matt Cassel, Matt Gutierrez and Kevin O’Connell played, if Brady were really injured, you’d think the Patriots would have pounced on one of the available, experienced quarterbacks who were out there, waiting to be picked up.But now that everybody’s worst fears have been realized, we’re all just going to have to buck up and deal with it. It’s football, and injuries happen. Now, we get to see just how much of a genius coach Bill Belichick really is.Let me be the first to say that if Belichick can coach this team into the playoffs, with Cassel calling signals, he deserves the label. This isn’t Earl Morrill of 1972 we’re talking about (though let’s all agree Cassel acquitted himself quite nicely Sunday, albeit against the wretched Kansas City Chiefs).Belichick’s first order of business, if the Patriots are to dominate the AFC East again, is to restore the team’s swagger ? which disappeared down that stairway to nowhere with Brady Sunday afternoon. That swagger is one of the main reasons the Patriots roll over teams as frequently as they do.Unless you’re the Indianapolis Colts, or, apparently, the New York Giants, you go into games against the Patriots – even on your own field – with the understanding that you’ll probably lose. How else do you explain the playoff win in San Diego two years ago? Or how the Pittsburgh Steelers, who, on paper, match up well against New England, cannot win a game against the Patriots regardless of where it’s played?Does anybody think the New York Jets (Sunday’s opponent) fear Cassel even half as much as they fear Brady? I don’t either. And I’ll bet Belichick would love to have Matt Walsh – the Steven Spielberg of the gridiron – working for him this week.What has to happen now, of course, is the same thing that happened in 2001, when Drew Bledsoe got hurt and passed the torch to Brady. Everyone else is going to have to work harder.It’s easy for Belichick and the veterans to say that winning is a “total team effort” when they know the game’s never over as long as No. 12 is calling signals. It’s a lot easier to shrug off a bad play that turns into a touchdown for the other team when you know No. 12 will lead the team right back downfield.Now, there’s no No. 12. There’s just No. 16 (unless the Patriots bring someone else in, which they say they’re not going to do). Running the football, a mere formality with Brady ensconced in that elite stratosphere of NFL quarterbacks, will now become a serious part of the game plan. The defense – a question mark coming into the season – will have to tighten up.Along with that, teams will