Image courtesy of Yahoo Sports
We made it.
The NFL preseason has mercifully come to an end for the Patriots.
With a rather embarrassing 37-13 loss in Cleveland on Thursday night, the Patriots now turn their attention to cut down day on Sunday before all eyes shift to Seattle in less than two weeks.
In fairness, the Patriots sat 38 players on Thursday and Cleveland fans had little-to-no interest in showing up for this one, rightfully so.
But, that meant a ton of guys fighting for jobs – whether it’s here or somewhere else – had to show up and show out.
They did not.
In fact, with so much depth talk since Mike Vrabel’s comments following the preseason game against Philly, there are now more questions than answers if any starter on both sides of the ball gets hurt.
“Not good enough…we’ll get back to work and see who we’re going to get back to work with,” Mike Vrabel said postgame.
The highlight of the night for the Patriots was a familiar one from this preseason, with Tommy DeVito hitting Kyle Williams for a 45-yard touchdown in the first quarter. Kyle Dixon also caught eight balls for 71 yards. Hassan Haskins probably locked up the No. 3 running back role despite only having 38 yards on 11 carries. A few of his runs were physical on third or fourth-and-short.
Other than that, there wasn’t much to be excited about when it comes to second or third string guys that could play significant roles.
The defense as a whole gave up 379 yards of offense, including 186 yards and three first half touchdowns for Cleveland’s No. 3 QB Dillon Gabriel. The Browns ran for 166 yards as a team and New England played ‘tackling optional’ football for the majority of the night, particularly in the secondary.
The Browns led 17-7 after one and 27-6 at halftime, with Andy Borregales making field goals of 33 and 26 yards. He was a positive too, now on an 8-8 run if you include the 6-6 performance he had in practice on Tuesday.
If you’re looking for something to cling to positively on defense, rookie Namdi Obiazor had 12 tackles (five solo).
Behren Morton played the majority of the game after DeVito (2-4, 55 yards) departed. Morton finished 18-28 for 123 yards with two interceptions, both of them coming via some bad luck.
So now, with more questions than answers when training camp began and a real game with the entire world watching rapidly approaching, how does Vrabel and the staff go about building a team they can confidently travel to Seattle with?
“We’ll make those decisions tonight, tomorrow morning and over the weekend,” he said. “You know, we’re always going to try and strengthen the roster, find guys, Eliot and his staff…everybody included, this process of…it’s a very fluid process. There’s going to be players that are going to be with us and then they’re going to be maybe picked up by somebody else and we’re going to be looking at people.
“We’re 31st in the claim. I think it’s just about being patient and figuring out who the right guys are.”