What is the story about?
Like Odysseus after 10 years at war and 10 more at sea, we’re back.
Patriots football is semi-officially underway, and I couldn’t be happier. Even though the Red Sox are suddenly good, ever since the World Cup ended I have been jonesing for some sports that get me riled up in the way that the other football can. We now have a Patriots game every single week until late November, which is just fine with me.
- Before I get into this year’s Fan Notes in earnest, I need to reverse a potential jinx I may have just put on this team by opening up the season with an Odyssey reference. Because one thing I don’t want to do is associate the New England Patriots with Odysseus in any way.
- And why is that, you may ask? Well the harsh reality is this: if there’s a more overrated hero in the entire history of literature than Odysseus, I have no idea who that person is.
- It pains me to say it, because Odysseus is an absolute badass in The Iliad. An excellent speaker and diplomat. A fierce warrior. Courage under pressure. Incredibly intelligent. But The Iliad isn’t really Odysseus’s story; center stage for that one belongs to Achilles.
- What The Odyssey gives us is the story of a man who, through a combination of poor decision-making, hubris, negligence, recklessness, and sheer arrogance, manages to turn what should have been a relatively pain-free trip home after a brutal war into a decade-long ordeal in which every single one of his men ends up killed, all while he’s getting balied out left and right by a goddess with a deck so stacked in his favor he might as well have been playing Madden on rookie mode against a toddler. And all of this is happening while his poor wife is at home getting bombarded from all angles by a bunch of douchebag suitors. Yet somehow, perhaps through effective marketing and an aggressive advertising campaign (for example, absolutely nowhere in any of the ancient texts is Odysseus explicitly credited with coming up with the idea for the Trojan Horse), everyone puts Odysseus into the GOAT debate of all-time great literary heroes. Well I call shenanigans.
- OK, I’m done. Sorry about that. Nobody came here for my opinion of a three-thousand-year-old poem or the various literary hills on which I’m willing to die. And Odysseus being the Joe Namath of heroic canon won’t stop me from enjoying the movie when it eventually hits the streaming services (I’m just not a movie theater guy. I think the last flick I saw in theaters was Inception). You’re all here for my hard-hitting analysis of a completely meaningless game in which the starters barely saw the field and a fair number of the players out there last night will be selling insurance by this time next month. So let’s get into that. I just wanted to make sure the 2026 season doesn’t become the story of Mike Vrabel making a bunch of horrible coaching decisions that lands the whole team on the IR.
- As always, what follows are more random, meandering, completely meaningless observations than they are anything substantive. I didn’t go back and rewatch any game tape, and I’m not going to bother taking the time to learn everyone’s name. We’re all so starved for football by August that it’s easy for these games to feel way more fun than they actually are, but what these games are really about are the back end of the roster, those few surprise players who weasel their way into our hearts, and which guys aren’t out there as opposed to which ones are.
- That said, early August is the absolute best time to play everyone’s favorite game, “Who the Hell is That Guy?” The 2026 version of this game brings us two Kobe(e)s who both play receiver and both wear #19, which makes things extra fun.
- Some of my favorite “Who the Hell is That Guy?” frontrunners: Mitch Van Vooren. Nick Degenarro. Peter Manuma. Quintavyvious Hutchins.
- And perhaps the winner of the preseason thus far, who needs to make the team desperately so he isn’t forced to make a living going out on quests to slay the ancient evils lurking beneath the Forgotten Caves of Eluria: Kindle Vildor.
- It’s hard not to enjoy Tommy DeVito, who at this point seems to have firmly ensconced himself into that coveted position of Patriots backup quarterback. I couldn’t care less about the stat line—though 13 of 22 for 138 yards and a TD is solid. What I do care about is having fun watching him play two more times and then never seeing him under center again for the rest of the year unless the Patriots are up by four scores with less than five minutes to play.
- If there are two things that remain consistent in these preseason games, or at least things that you can put some weight in, they are tackling and Special Teams. Special Teams will be a lot of guys’ tickets onto a roster this year, so you’re going to see a lot of effort on those plays. But that will all matter a lot more over the next two games than this one, as that’s when we’ll start seeing the actual units come into shape.
- I’m not going to panic about the poor tackling and relative lack of run defense yet either. But something to watch going forward.
- At least that’s what I’m telling myself this morning to justify Andy Borregales’s day. That and the fact that his long snapper was hurt. Yeah, that must have been it.
- As of right now, I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what the New England WR room is going to look like. There are currently 12 on the roster for what I imagine will be six, maybe seven, spots. And outside of AJ Brown, would you consider any other player to be a mortal lock? You figure Doubs, Douglas, Hollins, and Williams are locks too…but maybe not? Boutte has been a big trade rumor, but he looks great. Chism stands out at every practice.
- I’ll say this, though: it’s nice to be writing with a focus on backup quarterbacks and an abundance of offensive weapons in August as opposed to some version of “I wonder if the Patriots are going to have enough players that are actually capable of playing football at a high level.”
- I’m pulling very hard for Lan Larrison. He has a great football name and an even better mustache. And he was the team’s second-leading receiver last night. I just can’t help but wonder if, as a running back, his seven rushes for one yard are going to end up hurting his chances, particularly in a deep RB room.
- Did Jam Miller do enough to secure the RB3 spot last night? Of course not. Does he look like the RB right now? For sure. Am I going to be insufferable with my Spaceballs references all season if he does make the team and has an impact? If you even have to ask that question, you haven’t been following my writing for the last decade and a half.
- Man I missed Scott Zolak. He seemed more reigned in than usual last night, maybe because it was a very mellow game or maybe because Gillette upped the price of booze again in the offseason. But Zolak is a great example of someone who knows exactly what his place is in the world and is living his best life there.
- Ben Brown was able to walk to the locker room, for what it’s worth. Hopefully he’ll be OK. No injuries to anyone is all you really want in one of these games.
- This game has whetted my appetite, and I’m way more excited than I should be for next week, when the starters will likely see some time and we’ll get a better sense of what actual football is. I still don’t know if Week 2 is the new Week 3 of the preseason or not, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. Just everyone stay healthy, and let’s speed on towards September.
It’s good to be back writing these. But man am I out of shape. I didn’t think a person could get
winded typing on a laptop, but here I find myself. Time to go lie down.
