Audio: Michael Lombardi has high hopes for this Patriots team

Michael Lombardi is one of my favorite NFL analysts. He always has fair and balanced opinions and brings perspective to some of the biggest topics in the NFL. A lot of that you can attribute to his film study.

Here are some key Patriots takeaways:

Lombardi says that Josh McDaniels will likely rely on the running game more later in games. He brings up several times last season where, even though the Patriots scored a lot of points, they never were able to control the game. He uses the Colts game as a pretty good example of this. It was a blowout, and then suddenly it wasn't.

He really stressed how he thinks the running game will be more of a part of the Patriots strategy under Josh McDaniels, citing the offense back in 04-05. The Patriots didn't really rely on the run too much in 2007 under McDaniels though, and with so many questions in the backfield I don't think the Patriots pass first approach will change.

He also says there is absolutely no chance that Brandon Lloyd turns into Chad Ochocinco, something anyone who has watched training camp knows already.