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Pats Posits

Pats Posits: Camp Starts Thursday!

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After a long spring of unparalleled toxicity in Patriots Nation, real football is finally back this Thursday! Yes, the Patriots were a play away from winning another Super Bowl, but because they couldn’t get that fourth-down stop we’ve had to listen to the Eagles’ incessant chest pounding, our defense ridiculed and a near-constant barrage of stories about behind-the-scenes drama.

The common thread now for any interviews of former Patriots players? Did you have fun while you played there? Was Bill Belichick nice enough?

We’ve come full circle.  The Patriots dynasty is only setting the bars of NFL history higher and higher at this point. Almost every meaningful record belongs to the team, Belichick and Tom Brady.

All that’s left to wonder is if this is the greatest sports dynasty in sports history?

That’s why I’m excited for 2018. It’s Brady Ride or Die time. Every new championship and award is just gravy at this point, so what do we really have to worry about? Enjoy the end and marvel at how hard this coach-quarterback tandem continues to work despite already being legendary.

Here are some Posits on this Monday morning about the 2018 Patriots and my plans for training camp and the upcoming season.

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Pats Posits: Countdown to Camp is On!

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With the 4th of July in the rearview mirror, all focus now turns to Patriots training camp, which opens in just 17 days. It was an annoying offseason, watching some important and beloved players walk and hearing constant chatter about internal discord. I’m ready for all that to be over.

How does it all translate onto the football field? We’re about to find out.

I’m especially ready for this 2018 Patriots train to leave the station. Edelman and Hightower will be back out there and they’re a huge boost. And yes, we get to watch Tom Brady play football for another season. Savor every second.

The end looms so every new moment of Brady-Belichick will be thrilling and uncertain. Fingers crossed they got another run at this thing in them, it will be historic and crazy no matter how it turns out.

In case you missed them I posted some camp battle previews :

Training Camp Battle Breakdowns:

  1. Left Tackle
  2. Defensive End
  3. Wide Receiver
  4. Running Back

Also, a pre-camp 53-man roster projection. All of it generated some good areas to discuss so let’s hop in with some Posits…

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Pats Posits: Mini Camp Week

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Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski will be back on the practice field at Gillette Stadium this week as the Patriots host their three-day mandatory minicamp.

After choosing to spend their optional OTA days training on their own, the critical eyes will be closely monitoring the two Patriot stars for any signs of rust. Yes, as Tom Brady winds down his career on his own terms he’ll be increasingly under the microscope, especially as he crosses 41 this summer.

At least the “Where in the World is Tom Brady” storylines will be dead for this week. (Instead, we’ll get a Brady-missed-a-pass and Gronk-had-a-drop WHAT DOES IT MEAN!?!?!-athon)

My actual football thoughts in the Posits.

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20 Sans-Brady OTA Pats Posits

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The doldrums of the offseason will be a bit alleviated this week as the Patriots host (optional) off-season team activities. Tom Brady has followed through on his commitment to spend more time with his family this offseason and won’t report until the mandatory mini-camp next month.

Of course, there will be plenty of interesting things to pick up for those who are paying attention to the football part of the thing. But expect most of the chatter and debate to continue to revolve around Brady’s absence and what it all means.

Aside from Brady (and Gronk) not being in attendance, are 20 things that will be interesting to me:

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Pats Posits: Let the Tampering Begin!

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It’s an exciting time to be a football fan with the start of free agency this week, the 2018 season will finally start to take shape. For the Patriots, they already grabbed Danny Shelton and another draft pick for what will likely be a 2019 3rd round pick, making a solid investment in this coming fall without sacrificing much more than a couple million in cap space this season.

There are still plenty of moves for them to make, starting with Nate Solder and the tackle position.

From there they can move on to running back, linebacker and cornerback, doing what they always do — targeting the cost-effective vets in the middle-to-lower tiers. 2017 was a shocker when they made a big splash on a cornerback. Since Adalius Thomas they really had avoided big time external free agent deals, with consideration to Darrelle Revis, who was expensive but really just a one-year rental.

They had the cap space last year, this year they don’t. So until Solder is resolved I don’t expect any big moves. After that there should be quite a bit of action.

More on that and everything else that might come at us this week in a very offseason Posits!

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Pats Posits Tuesday Edition: The Aftermath Continues

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So much coming at us here in the early days of the offseason it’s hard to keep a handle on it, so I’m going with a Pats Posits Tuesday Edition so I can chime in on all of it. For those of you braving the waters of ESPN and sports radio bless your hearts, I’ve been in mostly a bubble since Sunday night and I’ve really quite enjoyed it. Every now and then I’ll see something stupid they’re talking about and am reminded why I’ve been abstaining.

— Matt Patricia has officially been named the head coach of the Lions and it appears he’s taking Patriots special teams coach Joe Judge with him. So this will be a hard reset on all three coordinator spots and I wonder if Belichick holds back with the actual coordinator titles as he promotes from within. It was how he protected McDaniels and Patricia in their early days and could make sense here for Brian Flores and Chad O’Shea. Still rumors of Greg Schiano joining the staff, which would be another Belichick reclamation project. I think it would be good to get another perspective like Schiano in an assistant head coach role.

— I still can’t get over the game Tom Brady had in the Super Bowl. I’d bet that the Brady Cliff Gang has been mostly quiet these last couple days and if they’re not quiet they’re just doubling down on stupidity once again. All things considered this might’ve been Brady’s best overall Super Bowl game. Yes, the fumble at the end was a crappy button on the end of it, but outside of that what more could you ask from Brady in a game like this? As we hit 2018 there’s no question we’re in the twilight of his career and each game he QBs here on out is a gift. If that was his last Super Bowl I think he put another feather in his Patriot hat despite the loss.

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Pats Posits: Relief, Bewilderment and Frustration After Pats’ SB52 Loss

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The Eagles made one of the only big defensive plays of the game and beat the Patriots in Super Bowl 52 for their first championship last night. Before we get too heavily into the “what the hell happened” of it all, I think it’s important to say the Eagles played the perfect game. So few teams can put together the flawless 60-minutes of effort required to take down Tom Brady and steady strangulation of the Belichick Pats but that’s what Philadelphia did on the biggest stage and for all the bickering about what the Patriots did or didn’t do, Philly deserves full credit for what they did.

It’s also important to remember that despite one of their worst defensive performances in recent memory (which is saying a lot) Tom Brady still got the ball back with plenty of time to win the game. That’s where it felt like this one was heading, until it wasn’t because Brandon Graham made the clutch play that the Patriots defense could not.

So yes, there’s plenty to unpack from this one, and most of it will take an entire offseason, but in this single game the Eagles were the better team and for whatever reason I’m not finding it all that hard to swallow. It’s been a while since I’ve been in my Patriots cave of misery. The last time I was here was January of 2016 after a frustrating  loss to Peyton Manning and the Broncos.

There were some cobwebs in the cave, some dusty pictures of SB42 and SB46 and Peyton Manning as a Bronco, but there’s a strange comfort in the cave of misery. This is where most NFL fans exist full time, and we’ve gotten far more reprieve than all of them. If anything, this eighth Super Bowl trip was just a reminder of how hard it is to do what the Patriots have done. A better team got them this time, but I think there’s at least enough ammo in New England Patriots Football Weapon for another strong run next season.

Of course there are tons of questions as to what that weapon will look like exactly, but we’ll dive into those in the coming days and weeks.

First, let’s just vent about the Super Bowl…

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