-Are you ready for some football? Tweets above, link here if you want to click on some of those links (the Aaron Hernandez video is pretty sick, only 2 min, and worth watching): https://twitter.com/CultOfBelichick
-Again, not much news out of camp yesterday due reporting restrictions, but we should find out how the team is progressing tonight. 3rd preseason game, and a lot of the studs sat last week, so I think we see the starters into the third quarter. As Mike Reiss points out, Belichick likes having his starters come out of halftime and perform in the third quarter, feeling it is a nice stepping stone to the regular season. With that in mind, here are 5 things I am looking for tonight.
-Vereen v Ridley. This competition has been heating up the last few weeks after Ridley had seemingly locked down that number one spot. Vereen capitalized when Ridley was out for a few practices, but was unable to seize the moment in the Eagles game. He struggled, only gaining 20 yards 10 carries, but did have 4 receptions for 29 yards. He is a great receiver, and it seems like most of his contributions this year will come in the pass game. This should compliment Ridley well as he is more of the BJGE 1st and 2nd down back type. Want to see how each performs, and who gets more of the 1st team reps.
-Jeff Demps. I am not quite as excited about this as everyone else seems to be, but that doesn't mean I am not going to be watching him closely. I think Bill throws him into the fire starting him at kick returner, and trying to get him some touches in space with the 1st team offense. They do not have a lot of time to evaluate this guy, so I think you will see a lot of him. Interested to see exactly what they have planned for him.
-Tackle Play. The achilles heel of the Patiots right now. Does Vollmer play? If not, is there any improvement from Cannon? If not, they have a problem. Even if Vollmer does play, I do not see it being more than a few series as they do not want to wear him out after he just came back from injury. Another question is how does Solder fair now that he has Logan Mankins back on his right side. There was a lot of chatter this past week that once Solder gets Mankins back, he should look better, so let's see about that.
-Secondary play. I have bought into this defense. Hard. Maybe too hard though. I feel like it has the potential to be a top 5 defense. I truly do. This may be a case of blatant homerism and optimism, but they seem stocked at every position. Plus, the biggest thing I have noticed, is they seem to have that swagger back that they have been missing. They have one of the best interior tandems in Wilfork and Kyle Love, with Ron Brace and Brandon Deadrick mixing in. At end, Jones is a stud, and Ninkovich is a solid player. Cunningham has come in strong and we will likely see a 3 way rotation with them (with Trevor Scott possibly contributing as well). At linebacker....fuggetaboutit. This may be the best WLB MLB SLB combo in the league. I absolutely LOVE what they all bring to the table. Now, I think without question that is a top 5 front 7 in the league. So, the question becomes, how does the secondary fare? They have looked solid thus far in the preseason, but questions remain. Can they keep up their solid play? How do the Safetys look without Chung back there? Granted, we will not REALLY know until the season starts, but these games help us get a feel for how it will play out.
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