Important things to talk about here and I’ll probably have to go back and link to this during the game, but here are some thoughts on yours and a couple of my own.
1. CB play vs. Rodgers – We might only see a series or two from Rodgers and their top offense, but the important thing to remember is that the Patriots are going to play a vanilla defense. What that means is Cover 1, Cover 2 or Cover 3. I expect they’ll play a lot of man to man just to see how guys do, not because that’s the coverage they’re planning on playing primarily this season.
So much of the Patriots’ strength on defense is their disguise and mixing of coverages. So in no way will this game tell us how good they’ll be as a defense. What you’ll be able to see is how good guys are in their individual matchups and then that will inform how they’re actually used when the Pats start gameplanning.
2. Run defense is very important but let’s remember with limited tackling in practice now we can expect the tackling will be sloppy, and that will unfortunately continue into September as we saw last year. But still, stopping the run when the defense is evolving to more athletes than size will be an interesting thing to watch.
3. No question, it will be fun to watch the rookie guards. I’m excited to see Shaq Mason pulling in the running game, but I’m more curious to see how he holds up in the passing game, especially with a big tackle or linebacker bearing down on him.
4. Pass rush is kinda the same thing as the coverage, it’s going to be four guys rushing one on one probably and not any disguise to open up blitzers. Still, this is important from an individual physical performance point of view, but we’re not going to learn how good the 2015 Patriots pass rush will actually be in the regular season. Of course, the best pass rushers are the ones who can win one-on-one so we will get a sense of potential on some guys, especially the rookies. It’d be nice to see Easley launch through the line into the backfield a couple of times.
For me I’m most excited to see the rookies out there and see how their games translate at the pro level. Do they look lost? Or do they look like they’re immediately playing at real speed?
Jordan Richards is one I am very curious about.
Finally I want to see the running backs and how well they do at everything. I’d love to see Jonas Gray put in a strong showing, I think we need him to step up into a significant role now that it doesn’t look like Gaffney’s going to do much at least for now.