FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Lurking beneath the surface, somewhere in limbo or protective custody, the Patriots are hiding a different football team.
Midway through the 2016 preseason, we have seen a wholly adequate band of players win two preseason games for New England. What we haven’t seen is the collective force of talent that’s supposed to make the Patriots a Super Bowl contender.
So far, Jimmy Garoppolo has been poised, productive and appears ready to steward the offense during Tom Brady’s four-game suspension. Newcomer Martellus Bennett already seems like a fit, lining up in traditional tight end sets and drawing a good share of targets. Trey Flowers, a 2015 draft pick, has returned from injury to deliver exciting plays on the defensive line. Rookie Joe Thuney is winning the starting left guard position battle and may very well justify the Chandler Jones trade all by himself.
Of course, it’s impossible to take preseason football at face value, because what we see in August may not translate to the regular season.
“Teams aren’t game planning, teams aren’t attacking players like they would in the regular season,” Patriots Coach Bill Belichick said. “They’re running their plays and we’re running our plays and you kind of let what happens, happen. I think we do have good competitiveness on our team, but how good that is relative to our opponents, and what that will mean in the win-loss column and all. Really that’s a whole other conversation, and time will tell.”
Nonetheless, the Pats have to be optimistic that they are finding new contributors to blend into a football team that’s expected to be one of the best in the AFC. The larger issue – where is that part of the team? Where is the part that’s laden with exciting playmakers and future Hall of Famers?
Right now, the 2016 New England Patriots have a roster written hopefully in pencil. Pencil in Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola for a combined 130 receptions. Pencil in Rob Gronkowski to be the greatest tight end in the league. Pencil in Brady to be Brady, starting in Week 5.
While we’re busy penciling in a group that earns nearly a fifth of the team’s payroll, we should maybe consider that we’re writing with invisible ink.
Brady, Edelman and Gronkowski have not played a down in an exhibition game this year. Amendola is still on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list and Dion Lewis is out an extended period of time after another knee surgery. It’s worth noting that we have no idea whether Gronkowski is healthy after leaving a practice earlier this week (he hasn’t returned). Defensive lineman Jabaal Sheard, one of the most talented and important players on the team, has missed five consecutive practices and sat out Thursday’s victory over the Bears.
At this point, we don’t even know if Tom Brady has two thumbs anymore. Shortly before Thursday night’s game, Belichick said he planned to use all of his quarterbacks in the exhibition, but Brady did not make the start amid reports that he cut his thumb with a pair of scissors prior to the game.
“I made a decision and I don’t really have anything else to add,” Belichick said on Friday, neither confirming nor denying the reports.
There is no concrete information on the severity of the reported injury or a timetable for Brady to heal, though some reports said he left Gillette Stadium without a wrapping on either hand, which would suggest the wound is not too serious.
We’re more or less left with two potential outcomes for this season: Either the Patriots will incorporate this talented shadow team in a way that meets expectations, or they will not. As it stands, that’s the difference between the Patriots being a relatively good team and a contender for the AFC crown – getting their unhealthy core back on the field. It could be that we won’t really know what this team is until Week 5.
“We just have to do the best we can to try to put together the best team we can based on the information and observations that we have,” Belichick said, “and I’m sure that there will be some adjustments or fine-tuning as the year goes along, as there always is. Sometimes players do better in preseason, training camp, preseason games than they do in the regular season and they get a little over evaluated in (the) preseason, and sometimes it goes the other way, so we’ll just have to see.”
(Dave Brown covers the Patriots for the Monitor. Follow him on Twitter at @ThatDaveBrown.)