{"id":37551,"date":"2021-08-13T01:10:13","date_gmt":"2021-08-13T05:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patsfans.com\/patriots\/blog\/?p=37551"},"modified":"2021-08-13T01:10:13","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T05:10:13","slug":"a-new-era-begins-for-patriots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patsfans.com\/patriots\/blog\/2021\/08\/13\/a-new-era-begins-for-patriots\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Era Begins For Patriots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FOXBOROUGH &#8212; The Patriots have a strong name, and now once again seem to have a strong football team to go along with it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The preseason opener for the Patriots didn\u2019t reveal anything revolutionary or anything earth shattering.\u00a0 Both the offense and defense ran vanilla game plans and played rather close to the vest.\u00a0 But more important things were happening on Thursday night at Gillette Stadium, and fortunately this did not involve a player almost dying from a punctured lung.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mac Jones made his Patriot debut on Thursday night, coming on to the field for their third offensive possession to a nice ovation from the crowd, the first time fans were allowed at Gillette since January of 2020.\u00a0 Jones was able to get himself used to real game conditions, to show his new fan base his skill set, and to gauge his progress thus far in his brief NFL career.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jones wasn\u2019t there at the finish, and did not lead the Patriots to any touchdowns.\u00a0 Brian Hoyer actually did, but both touchdowns were scored by another rookie, Rhamondre Stevenson.\u00a0 The bullish running back from Oklahoma scored two fourth quarter rushing touchdowns, a one-yard blast followed by a scintillating game-sealing 91-yard romp.\u00a0 The Patriots managed to win, 22-13 over the Washington Football Team, in their second year of no mascot.\u00a0 The win was nice, but you saw several things which might bode well for when things get real.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We will begin with Jones.\u00a0 He finished 13 of 19 passing for 87 yards and a 78.2 rating.\u00a0 By the numbers, not dazzling or spectacular.\u00a0 But this wasn\u2019t what we should have been watching.\u00a0 How does Jones look in the position?\u00a0 Does he make good decisions?\u00a0 Does he look like a good solid leader who can command the respect of his teammates, even as a rookie?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perhaps the best takeaway from this game was that Jones never really made a bad throw all night long.\u00a0 He threw behind Jacob Johnson on a second quarter left flat pass which Johnson caught anyway just before the ball hit the ground.\u00a0 But overall he looked comfortable and smart.\u00a0 Most of Jones\u2019 completions were quick slants and dump passes.\u00a0 Jones never made a bad decision, he never forced a throw, and he never looked harried or confused out there.\u00a0 His poise overall was very good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His best throw of the night was an incompletion.\u00a0 Early in the second quarter, Jones lofted a deep pass to Kristian Wilkerson.\u00a0 It was a rainbow toss that landed perfectly in Wilkerson\u2019s hands, or rather it should have.\u00a0 Torry McTyer was right with him and bothered him just enough for Wilkerson to not be able to hold on to the perfectly thrown ball.\u00a0 It would have gone for 34 yards had the catch been made.\u00a0 Jones laid the pass right in there.\u00a0 If Jones can make those throws in the regular season, and if his varsity receiving corps can haul it in, Patriot Nation can smile.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What was also painfully obvious was that Jones vastly outplayed Cam Newton.\u00a0 Newton played the first two series and was 4 of 7 for 49 yards.\u00a0 He was nearly strip sacked by Chase Young, but the play was ruled an incomplete pass because his arm was moving forward (not a tuck rule play, folks).\u00a0 Newton basically looked like he did last year and did nothing to show that Jones should not be the starter when things get real.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jones was the big star tonight.\u00a0 But other players stood out, some for good reasons, and some for not good reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stevenson has a reputation as being a punishing runner, a bowling ball type.\u00a0 His first touchdown was a nice off tackle run where he ran over potential tacklers.\u00a0 His long run later on was preceded by two kneel downs to bleed Washington of time outs.\u00a0 Hoyer took the snap and tossed it to Stevenson on the right side.\u00a0 The Washington fourth string wannabes were completely caught off guard, and Stevenson got to the edge very quickly.\u00a0 He then tight roped the sideline before outrunning the defense.\u00a0 This was against the bottom of the barrel guys, but it bears watching if Stevenson gets more meaningful touches later on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is talk that Stevenson was drafted to replace Sony Michel.\u00a0 Michel had 6 rushes for 26 yards and a 4.3 average.\u00a0 But as September draws nearer, one should pay attention to Stevenson versus Michel and who gets more meaningful playing time.\u00a0 If Michel is favored in the fourth quarter in the last two games, he might not want to buy a home in the Foxborough area.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stevenson finished with 127 yards rushing on ten carries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Matt Judon served notice early on that the Patriot front seven will be more formidable in 2021.\u00a0 The free agent from Baltimore led a ferocious assault on Ryan Fitzpatrick, who like Newton played in only the first two offensive series for Washington.\u00a0 But he was always around the ball, and while he had no sacks, he showed what a force he projects to be.\u00a0 Judon put a scare in everyone early on when it looked like he hurt his knee after a tackle of J.D. McKissic.\u00a0 But he came out of the tent under his own power and did re-enter the game for a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The front seven also did a good job in run defense.\u00a0 Antonio Gibson had only five carries for 15 yards, and Peyton Barber six carries for 20 yards (and a touchdown surrendered by the second unit of the defense).\u00a0 Whatever Washington did later on was against lesser players.\u00a0 The varsity clogged up the middle very nicely, and kept the pressure on Fitzpatrick and Taylor Heinecke most of the game.\u00a0 The top defenders pitched a shutout, and that also has to make Patriot Nation smile.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quinn Nordin is trying to win the placekicking job from Nick Folk, a veteran who is currently injured.\u00a0 Nordin had a spotty career at Michigan, who went through stretches of inconsistency to the point where Jim Harbaugh had to bring in other kickers in clutch situations.\u00a0 He was taken by the Patriots as an undrafted free agent, and has been impressive in camp with a very strong leg.\u00a0 Nordin\u2019s Achilles heel is his accuracy.\u00a0 On Thursday night, he hit on all three of his field goal attempts, but was one of two on conversions.\u00a0 When Washington almost tied the game in the last two minutes, it was a one-score game because of Nordin\u2019s missed conversion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nordin is worth giving a long look.\u00a0 Maybe in the NFL his accuracy will improve thanks to the hash marks which are closer together in the NFL.\u00a0 The field goals he made looked just like the halcyon days of Steven Gostkowski.\u00a0 His 50-yarder was simply nailed dead center.\u00a0 If he doesn\u2019t have to worry about the rugby-ish kicks college kickers are sometimes forced to make, he may be more relaxed and do a good job.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Patriots have a strong name, and now once again seem to have a strong football team to go along with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":37542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22702],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2021-patriots-preseason"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A New Era Begins For Patriots<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Patriots have a strong name, and now once again seem to have a strong 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