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Patriots Start Preseason with a Comeback Win

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The Patriots and Redskins played a preseason game Thursday night but the result doesn’t matter, even if it was a slightly fun comeback win for the Pats. What really matters is that football is back and the 2018 Pats have taken another major step as they progress toward the regular season.

Yes, they came back from 17-0 down in typical Patriots fashion. You know, it’s infuriating watching teams walk down the field on them and the offense sputter. Then all of a sudden the ‘Bill Belichick is unhappy’ switch kicks in and they start playing well. The running game keyed things in this one, which shouldn’t be that surprising since no one had really tackled this summer until now and the backs were running hard.

Here are the Ups and Down and notes on the game.

UPs

  • Jeremy Hill – Hill has looked good in camp and carried it over into camp with a touchdown and strong running performance.
  • Ja’whaun Bentley – Rookie linebacker surprised leading team in tackles and looking far more active than he has in camp to me.
  • Ralph Webb – Rookie ran hard in the fourth, picking up a pair of touchdowns and two-point conversions. Though I never fall in love with preseason running backs. Beating out Hill and Gillislee would be a marvel.

DOWNs

  • Offense – Flat for nearly all of the first half, things were just out of sync with Brian Hoyer never finding Julian Edelman nor Phillip Dorsett. They turned it around in the second half.
  • Defense – Colt McCoy loves him some Patriots defense, getting some big plays as the Redskins ran out to a 17-0 lead. Should be surprising the tackling was bad. They were also better in the second half, culminating with Geneo Grissom’s fumble recovery.
  • Punt Return Competition – Can’t do much when the defense can’t get stops before the 50. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much to work with in the punt return competition.

— Starting Defense:

  • Rivers-Guy-Brown-Wise
  • Hightower-Roberts-Van Noy
  • Gilmore-Chung-Harmon-Rowe

Clayborn/Butler were the sub guys, which is a bit of a reversal for how I see things as far as Rivers being a base guy and Clayborn being a sub rusher. Who knows, this is all just messing around and seeing what guys do so don’t overreact to anything. Clayborn looked good, though I continue to wonder if his role will be smaller than I expected this season.

— Prime example, the three safety grouping will be the primary personnel package on defense and we didn’t see any of it, not to mention any kind of disguise or blitzing. Vanilla D.

— Jacob Hollister continues to catch everything that gets thrown his way. He didn’t have a signature play but he was consistent as always.

— Elandon Roberts improvement is a big x-factor for the defense and I thought he had a good couple plays on the initial series including once where he (gasp) didn’t bite on a play action. He also made a couple patented stops. If he makes a leap in his third year the defense as a whole will make a leap. He drew a hold in the second quarter with a strong fill on the edge. Yet he was still playing in the second half for whatever that is worth.

— Didn’t think we’d see Hightower and Edelman as much as we did but I am reminded that they need to get adjusted to real football games again.

— The Redskins’ first-quarter scoring drive went after two of the Pats better players in camp – Gilmore and Van Noy. Still, when you’re playing your first game of the season and you’re basically on a man coverage island it’s easy to get exposed if you’re not up to speed yet.

— Ryan Lewis/ JC Jackson in on the 2nd team CBs. Between those two and Wiltz, one will make the team, one will hopefully get to the practice squad and the other will end up on an active roster elsewhere. It’s just what happens with low profile corners in NE every season. And Keion Crossen might just get into that group if he can stay on the field and avoid plays like his missed pick that resulted in a huge play in the second quarter.

— One of the biggest surprises to me in this one? Ja’whaun Bentley playing outside linebacker and looking nimble. I can safely say I never saw him look like this in any training camp. He drew a hold too. He is all of a sudden the young LB to watch going forward.

— Jeremy Hill has been impressive to me in camp, including a tell-tale sign of playing special teams, and he had one of the few good offensive games. He’s still my favorite over Gillislee who looked a lot like last year to me, unable to get through tackles and pick up tough yards. He had two fourth-down conversions after failing to convert third-and-shorts.

— Devin Lucien is buried on the WR depth chart but there’s a lot to like about him as he has good size and came through with a few catches that sparked the comeback.

— Cordarrelle Patterson didn’t get in until the second half but made a couple more great catches like we’ve seen plenty of in training camp. He’s a roster lock as a KOR and 4th/5th WR and I’d bet he makes a couple “holy crap” plays with Brady this season.

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