Kickoff: The Patriots kick off the 2023 preseason at home tonight against the visiting Houston Texans. It is the Patriots only home preseason game this season. The Patriots will wrap up the home portion of training camp this weekend. 

After that, they head to Green Bay next Tuesday. The Patriots and Packers will do two days of joint practices before they face off next Saturday night at Lambeau Field.

From there, the Patriots will travel to Tennessee and do joint practices with the Titans before playing them in the preseason finale on August 25th. 

Here are four points for the Patriots tonight.

Four Points:

1. Evaluate Players 75 to 90: The Patriots most likely will not play many of the starters so this game is meant to evaluate the players on the back end of the roster. With one less preseason game, this game is gold to those players. They must make a favorable impression if they want to have any shot at sticking.

2. First look at the rookies: This is our first opportunity to see Christian Gonzalez and the rest of this rookie class in action. This group is talented and the expectation is, that many of them will contribute to this team this season. As always, it will be interesting to see how the Patriots use them schematically.

3. New offense: After last season’s debacle, Patriots fans are clamoring to see Bill O’Brien and the new look Patriots offense. The expectation is that the Patriots will return to their roots offensively with O’Brien back but I think we will see a lot of new wrinkles this season and we could see some of those tonight.

4. Defensive structure: It will be interesting to see who coordinates the defense tonight. Will it be Steve Belichick or will it be Jerod Mayo? The Patriots convinced Mayo to stay in January. His title hasn’t changed but let’s see if his on-field responsibilities did. We’ll find out tonight. 

Extra Point: The Patriots and Houston Texans will meet in the preseason for only the second time. The two teams previously met on Aug. 19, 2017. The Texans won that match up 27-23 in Houston. The two teams held joint practices that week. 

Final Drive: Tonight is all about evaluating the back-ups, third stringers and rookies. The Patriots need to figure out what they have in these groups. The majority of the starters will not play do it will be good for Bill Belichick and his staff to evaluate these players in game situations before determine their fate later this month.