Starting Shots

Last nights game looked like Pop Warner football. (No offense Pop)

Well preseason, it has been real, but it's time to move on. The NFL regular season is approaching quickly and the Pats have not looked this unprepared in the Belichick era. The offensive line has been down right awful. A function of that ineffectiveness has been that the quarterbacks have looked lame. Mechanically speaking Mallett is doing fine. He is just not really grabbing the reigns as I expected him to. In fairness, it is not easy to look good when Marcus Cannon is doing his matador routine. He reminds me of watching Todd "Rollerskates" Rucci trying to stop Reggie White in Super Bowl XXXI. On every play he literally makes his opponent look like Reggie White. He is completely over matched at this level.

Thankfully the games actually mean something now. I have a feeling that the Patriots will look much better after all the fat is cut and the games start to count. It is generally not a good idea to overreact to preseason play, but realistically they have given us no cause for optimism based on their on field performances this year. However, this team is so good on paper, and so routinely makes winning the division look easy, that I must assume things will fall into place. I cant wait to find out on September 9th in Tennessee.