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Patriots 2019 Preseason Set

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The Patriots got their preseason schedule for the summer and it’s about as Pats-friendly as it could get, with matchups against Matt Patricia’s Lions and Mike Vrabel’s Titans in the first two weeks of the season.

There’s quite a few reasons to be excited about this schedule with the obvious one being that the team can go back to using joint practices in early August. They took last summer off from them and got off to a 1-2 start. Communication with Patricia and Vrabel should be seamless and let’s not forget both teams knocked off the Patriots on the road last year.

It’s hard to draw too much continuity between 2018 and 2019, but opening with two games on the road at venues where the team lost would be a nice reminder of how things can go even for eventual Super Bowl champs when they don’t show up to play.

Add in the team building experience of being on the road for those first two games and it’s another positive. Training camp is usually isolating and forces team chemistry to be built, but doing it on the road, likely with extended weeks in Nashville and Detroit, should help even more.

There will be changes this year for the Pats with some significant turnover, so this kind of experience is even more welcome this season.

Plus it will give Bill Belichick a chance to scout all the players on the low end of the opponent’s rosters. Surely Patricia and Vrabel have been collecting their own version of Patriots fits so don’t be surprised if Belichick grabs someone he sees during those practices and games later down the line.

The third week of preseason is always billed as a dress rehearsal and Carolina is always a good opponent, especially dealing with the likes of Cam Newton and Luke Kuechly. The physical Panthers should give the Pats a good sense of where they stand in their first game at home of the summer.

Then the Pats wrap things up as usual with a scrubfest against the Giants. Having the last two games at home should also be a good advantage as the season approaches, keeping the players close to their own facility to maximize treatment and preparation for opening day.

Expect the regular season schedule to come out in the next couple weeks. But for now, it’s hard to ask for things to be much better for a preseason schedule that will give the Pats some great experience to build off of.