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The Patriots closed out two-a-days today as they packed up and headed down to Atlanta to practice with the Falcons prior to their second preseason game on Thursday night. After hearing all the praises sung about the bonus of practicing with another team, it’s clear that the young Pats are acquiring some great experience. 

When you’re starting so many young players, and have the need to come out of the gate with a good start, the benefit of these practices will be huge. This will accelerate the learning curve for the rookies and second year guys who will need to have an immediate impact.

The loss of Ty Warren is significant, but it happened early enough in camp that the Pats shouldn’t suffer a letdown from losing him and they should be able to replace him much more adequately with so much time and practice to work with before the season starts. Every team will have injuries this year, and it’s better to have them early in training camp so you have a good chance to fill that hole, as opposed to the middle of the season when you have to make do with what you have already. As always Labor Day weekend will be an interesting one.

Ron Brace is back, and the Pats will really need him to play like the second round draft pick that he was. If he can make an impact this year the Pats will be looking even more stacked for the next five years. If not, defensive line becomes even more of a priority in the 2011 draft. 

The Pat also need to get healthy. Jermaine Cunningham, Gary Guyton and Tully Banta-Cain are all currently hobbled, to what extent we don’t know. It is vital that Cunningham gets back on the field asap so that his development is not hindered. Though the return of Derrick Burgess takes some pressure off him he needs as much experience as possible if he’s to contribute early and often this year.

The biggest rule of preseason is not to take too much, good or bad, from what happens in the games. Offensive and defensive game plans are vanilla, and some personnel decisions are made not because those players are at the top of the depth chart but because the coaches want to see them play with and against the best players. Really the only thing you can judge is individual performances within the frame work of the game. 

So with that in mind here are the quick hit thoughts…

– There are a lot of impressive youngsters on the Patriots, on both sides of the ball. Just like that they’ve gone from old and slow to young and inexperienced. But with the good coaching the young Pats are sure to receive we are looking at the foundation of the next decade of dominance.

– Tom Brady looks uber focused this year. He wanted to beat the Saints eventhough it was just a preseason game. 

– Randy Moss is in incredible shape. Him and Brady could connect for 20 TDs this year.

– Julian Edelman is legit. So so dangerous in the open field. He is similar to Wes Welker but he’s got his own bag of tricks that make him possibly more elusive that WW.

– Brandon Spikes is exactly the kind of player this defense needed so badly. He blew up more than a couple running plays last night, something that Gary Guyton is really suited for. 

– Jerod Mayo looks blazing fast again. Last night really put it into perspective how limited he was last year after his knee injury.

– Patrick Chung had a great tackle on 3rd and 4 to prevent the Saints from picking up a first down. It looks like he still needs work on his coverage.

– Time to get to know Rookie Free Agent Dane Fletcher, looks like coaches wanted to see more of him than Tyrone McKenzie last night. Should be interesting to see who gets more reps against the Falcons.

– I like the decision to start Benjarvus Green-Ellis. The Patriots need to find out what they really have in him. With all the running backs having their contracts expire this year it’s time to see if BJGE is a keeper or just an average stop-gap. Looked to me like he’s just a stop-gap.

– Dan Connolly looked pretty good, and should hold his own at the LG spot. He had a nice block to set up BJGE’s TD.

– Alge Crumpler could be seen on the sidelines counseling Aaron Hernandez after Hernandez was unable to escape a tackle for loss. You can’t underestimate the effect of having a veteran like Crumpler around for these young TEs.

– Speaking of the TEs Rob Gronkowski looks like a blocking force out there. Many times the Pats ran right off him at the point of attack. With this dangerous 3 TE set I wonder if the Pats will use a lot more power to defeat these smaller spread offense-defending defenses.

– I don’t want to hear one peep about how great McCourty looked out of anyone who complained when the Pats selected him. He is an impact four down player and those don’t come around very often.

– Still unimpressed with Wilhite, would like to see more of Wheatley and even Arrington (who was laying fools out) as the nickelback with the top defense.

– I think that Sam Aiken and Brandon McGowan will both make the 52 man roster.

– Brandon Tate had a good confidence-building catch with Brady. Hopefully he can continue to progress.

– I was really impressed with Gerard Warren and Mike Wright. If we can get Ty Warren back I actually think we’ll be okay along the defensive line.

– Marques Murrell did a pretty good job, but I’d still like to see what Jermaine Cunningham can do at OLB.