New England eyes are watching …

By Os Davis  |   Friday, August 22, 2008  |  Comments( 4 )

New England Patriots
Got something to say?

Log In above and share your thoughts on this topic with other fans!

The positives in the New England Patriots preseason thus far? That’s easy. The list looks something like this:

• Randy Moss.

• Ah, it’s the preseason. These games don’t count in the final record.

And that’s about it, unless you want to statistically legitimize the ultimate in sangfroid with regard to the chaotic mess of preseason Weeks 1 and 2:

• Hey, don’t forget the Pats were 0-2 through two in the last preseason, man. And they went 16-0 in the regular season!

New England Patriots Football Inc. knew the team would be facing a few question marks going into 2008; the perceptive linebacker- and special teams-heavy draft belied this notion, as did the Lewis Sanders, John Lynch and Fernando Bryant signings. But one has to wonder if the Patriot brain trust anticipated that holes would still be apparent thus far in or that certain youngsters (we’re looking at you here, Bo Ruud) would not develop quite as quickly as possible.

Against the Eagles, New England figures to test a wide range of players to assist in smoothing out quite a lot of rough edges on the second team – a number of whom haven’t seen an adequate amount of on-field time, if any, this season. A brief look at a few ... let’s call them “areas of concern” for the Patriots on Friday.

• Return men. Apparently, Ellis Hobbs will see some time on special teams, which is bad news for an already resource-stretched crew at DB. Because Jonathan Wilhite and Lewis Sanders returned to practice this week, each of this pair will probably field a kick or two. Wilhite has to be considered the preferable choice here, but the rookie hasn’t exactly knocked any New England observers out thus far.

• LaMont Jordan. After wowing Beantown in Week 1, looking like he’d just time-warped through a stargate straight from Oakland circa 2005, Jordan got his body tweaked enough to sit out some practice and last week’s game versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Another strong performance by Jordan would not only tighten up (and thus heighten up interest in) the four-man competition at halfback, it will also go a long way to proving the existence of life in 2008 New England football.

• The linebackers. (Imagine the scene in the wee hours of early morning, Patriots boot camp.) “Wake up, Private Ruud, it’s time to play some football now! Did you study the playbook last night? Good; you may get your shot at keeping your sorry ass on this team tonight! Jerod Mayo and Shawn Crable, you guys have been everything we wanted in solo wrap-up tacklers when Uncle Bill drafted ya, but when was the last time you maggots defensed a pass?! Mayo, on some of these pass plays, you’re looking loster than those m************ on that island on that goddamn teevee show! And you, Thomas! You need to dust off your little pink skirt and get out there! I don’t give a good goddamn about your “age” or “injuries”! Vrabel, you need to quit bitching to Patriots.com and play some football! (OK, actually, you’ve been frankly awesome in the preseason so far ...) But that don’t mean squat, private! We’ve got about two weeks to make a linebacking corps outta this mess and by gum we’re gonna do it! This army don’t have its badass reputation for nothing! Etcetera!

• The post-game press conference. While everyone else this side of Moss is still shaking off the gathering moss, there’s at least one guy on top of his game. Check out Bill Belichick as he displays full-on midseason form in his intro to Wednesday’s press conference, lovingly captured by the team’s official Web site and quoted verbatim :

We’re chugging along here...looking at Philadelphia, once again they’re looking pretty good...They’re solid in all three aspects of the game, and they’ve got real good skill players, real good offensive line, real good on defense, always strong kicking game, a lot of explosive players; this’ll be another really good test for us.

All right, then! I’m ready for some (preseason) football! How about you, New England?

Fantasy Playbook: An entirely new kind of fantasy game!
Got something to say?

Log In above and share your thoughts on this topic with other fans! (4)

About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's ...
read more
Article Tools Share!   |  RSS  |  Bleacher Report About Bleacher Report