New England Patriots preseason game offers signs of optimism

For a New England Patriots fan base that has not seen winning football, early August can be a dangerous time. On the one hand, spectators like to be excited when great plays happen. However, it's crucial to keep in mind that a lot of positives are happening for players who will be by their phones when the season starts hoping for a call. So with that in mind, it's important to keep everything in context, but there are always potential takeaways from football action or game/practice footage even around this time of year.

Adding further context to any evaluations, it's important to know that this is something of a fool's errand. Opposing game plans in terms of what the coaches are emphasizing and even how they are allocating playing time are critically important unknowns. Consequently, when analyzing the game itself, it's important to look for general themes and how individual players act in certain situations in a vacuum. That being said, there was deserved social media buzz surrounding Joe Milton.

He made some crowd-pleasing energy plays that ended a well-played professional debut. And while an out-and-out QB competition doesn't look likely, these types of performances from anyone moving forward could create separation and ultimately push others off the depth chart entirely. But looking past the most important position of football, there are other storylines to emerge.

Notably, the defense played exactly how you would hope it would. It took a late field goal to prevent what otherwise would have been a shutout. But holistically, the unit played with a lot of pace and attacked. It was difficult for the Carolina Panthers to get into any sort of rhythm, and there were mostly fortunate that more negative plays didn't happen.

There will be a lot of games that look sloppy, especially early on. The adage is that the defense is always ahead of the offense early on. So for the first couple of weeks it won't be surprising to see a lot of low-scoring games. But the fact that the Panthers were mostly held in check and really struggled to get much of anything going, showed the potential of this defense. It's a one-game sample size, but it illustrates a unit that is able to dictate versus react.

Other encouraging areas for the New England Patriots

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For all of the excitement that came against the Panthers it was a play that didn't count, that may have been the most impressive. Rolling to his left, Bailey Zappe found Javon Baker for a wonderful contested catch in the elements while maintaining possession and staying inbounds. It got called back due to a flag, but this illustrates the point of preseason play.

While it didn't count as a reception, and didn't add any official yards. The ability of the wide receiver to make this catch in traffic on a slippery ball shows promise and at least garners further consideration for an increased role in the next game. It's only one play, but compiling multiple efforts such as this can only do a player favors by the time cut day comes. Finally, David Wallis offered some special team play that if taken too far and could easily be reminiscent of a certain Julian Edelman who once scampered up the field on returns.

Again, such a direct comparison is foolish at this time. But seeing glimpses and watching good football even if it is the first preseason game shows good opportunity for this current group. A lot has been made of who wasn't able to be added to the roster. But if anything can be taken away from the Jerod Mayo-led group, the New England Patriots have enough young talent to likely keep things interesting in any game and for sure have enough to be able to pick who they want to go forward with once the season concludes and to build around.