After beating the Falcons I mentioned I almost hoped the Patriots would lose to the Rams. There’s nothing worse than a young team who’ve had two excellent performances and starting to buy into their own hype a little bit. A nice loss would knock them back down to earth, back to the reality of how much work needs to be done.
I didn’t think it would be as ugly as it was but there’s really no need to panic or think that this defense will somehow be worse than last years.
Here’s what we know:
1. The offense will be very, very good.
2. The defense is young and will be inconsistent (but hopefully more consistent than last year.
The offense sputtered for most of the first half, but the finally clicked and looked pretty much unstoppable (against 2s and 3s of course). Fine.
But the defense started bad and got worse. What was most disappointing was the first team defense allowing a 15-play, 76-yard touchdown drive to mostly backups to open the second half, that ate up nearly 10 minutes of clock.
You’d hope after BBs halftime “message” they’d come out and show some life. They didn’t.
One bright spot I noticed was Ron Brace. He was tossing tackles into the backfield and getting off the ball quicker than last week. I really hope his ankle is okay. Him making an impact this year would be an awesome story.
Early on it looks like this team is really most susceptible to the short, three-step-drop passing game. Meaning it looks like we’re on pace to see a lot of the “dink and dunk” early on.
I can’t say I was horrified by the run defense last night. Aside from one long run by Stephen Jackson (Burgess lost contain) I thought they were fairly stout. What I’m not sure about is if they have penetrators who can get stops in short yardage situations.
The secondary played inexcusably bad. I know we are playing guys with under five years experience but performances like will get you blown out.
On the other side of the ball, what else can you say, this offense looks ready to open a can of whoop ass again. If they are able to run the ball they will be very hard to stop and has the potential of being more versatile than they were in 2007.
Instead of Jabar Gaffney and Donte Stallworth on the outside and intermediate routes, the Pats will now have two versatile tight ends to control the center of the field, while Brandon Tate looks like he could be the outside guy we lacked last year.
There’s where we’re at. One more preseason game to go. Expect an excellent performance from the defense, a full game for Brian Hoyer, and a team that is ready and primed to take on the Bengals.