The offseason continues to slowly drip by, with the Patriots 2016 preseason opponents being announced. The Pats will play:
- Aug 11-15: vs NO
- Aug 18-22: vs CHI
- Aug 25-28: at CAR
- Sept 1-2: at NYG
It’s a good bet the Pats will take advantage of the Belichick-Sean Payton connection once again and set up some joint practices early in training camp, and could possibly do the same with the Bears. Those are always a good chance to get some quality work in against another scheme and style.
What I like about this preseason schedule is that it gives the Pats a nice cross section of pretty good teams to prepare them for the regular season. They’ll get to see practice time and a drive or two of a great passer in Drew Brees, a half of an okay passer in Jay Cutler, and one of the best mobile quarterbacks in the game in Cam Newton in the all-important third preseason game.
And yes, the Pats scrubs and hanger-ons will get to see Eli and the Giants for the first time sans Tom Coughlin in the final preseason week.
The full schedule should be released in the next month and that should be fascinating to see how the 2016 campaign lays out. It’s not the cake walk the 2015 schedule was, and is far closer to the hard road 2014 was. Of course as we saw, playing some great teams prepared that 2014 team well for the playoffs, though remaining healthy was the bigger key.
