There are lots of possibilities for this team this year, and it’s great to look at their special teams, which has changed in some fundamental ways. Their long-snapper is gone to Denver, and Arizona’s has come to them as has a new rookie. The team will also be dealing with the new rules on special teams. Ie, the three man wedge is no longer allowed. They wont need to have large linebackers on the field to smash the wedges in the same way anymore. There are several other players who are able to play on offense or defensive squads as well, so we will have to look at which individual players jump into the mix next season and start making big plays for them. The team has never had outstanding special teams that I can remember, but they are good enough to get the team decent field position and good movement.

I’m not one for predictions, as you know. But I’m one that will talk about what other people are expecting for the season. And with the training camp beginning, there are many people interested in making predictions about the various people on the team and it will be interesting to see which ones of them are right. There are several that seem a little uncertain of some of the new players. Most of them are fine and some have great resumes. Others are just new and not necessarily the best in the league. But just think about this team. When was Brady the best in the world before he came in for Bledsoe? When was Vrabel so good until he got trained well? This is the genius of this team: they can bring almost everyone up to the task of playing in the NFL.

Every year, there is a special routine that Patriots fans go through. It starts with the win in January and February. Missed that this time around. But then there is a quiet spring. But then, about this time of year, things start getting exciting: at the end of July training camp begins. There are people who will want to go see part of training camp themselves. There will be two sessions each day during those two weeks and they are open to the public. Then you can see for yourself if your favorite player is up to snuff or not. But if you’re going, you might want to plan on seeing the morning session, because the coach might actually cancel the afternoon session as motivation during the morning. You will enjoy training camp, because it gives you a much more close view of the players than you will get at any typical game.

Trent Green has weighed in on the impending return of Tom Brady. He says that Brady looks just fine and has heard that he is going well. It’s the mental part of it that will take some work. Brady hasn’t done contact drills just yet, even though he feels just fine. Green, however, says that he might be a little nervous at first, but then when he gets hit a couple of times with everything ok, he’ll realize that it’s not scary and that it’s just normal work like ever. Green had similar kinds of problems back in his days in the league and knows how the process goes. Meanwhile, the Patriots are pretty well relying upon Brady for their comeback this season, trying to take the Dolphins off the AFC East championship post.It’ll be an exciting season no matter what.

A new article gives a chilling account of how the Patriots’ world has been over the last couple of years. The team was so dominant two years ago that people all around the NFL were upset. Many people outside our area were upset about it and hoped for the demise of our team. It seemed for awhile like it might have happened with the last minute loss in the Super Bowl to a wild card team and a first week injury to the star quarterback seemed to be the final demise. But the way I think of it, we have amazing luck, with a backup quarterback that we couldn’t have expected a better first season from. Great supporting cast. Many people think the Patriots are down, but I think they’re on their way back right now! We shouldn’t worry about this season at all, because we have a lot going for us. Don’t freak out Pat fans!

Now that the new 2009 schedules are out, we can take a look and see whether this year will be harder for the Patriots or relatively easy. In fact, it looks like their schedule isn’t going to be too bad. The most difficult thing is that they are in the overly competitive AFC East, with the resurgent Bills and a potentially strong Jets team. But there are a lot strong teams that are missing from their schedule, including the Steelers, Cowboys and Cardinals. Instead, they will be playing the Falcons, Begals, and Jaguars. As a result, I would personally say that this is a relatively easy schedule. What do the rest of you think? It looks to be a fun year anyway, and the Patriots look very likely to succeed!

A man in Boston, who I don’t want to name even though you can find it in newspapers all over, got into big trouble due to Tom Brady. The man spend 5 years in jail because he robbed a bank. After he got out, he decided to make a new start in life, working side jobs and also trash picking to get things to sell. Last fall, he was in a nice neighborhood of Boston and he found some metal planters near the garbage and mistakenly thought they were being thrown out. Scrap metal is usually able to get a pretty good price and so he picked them up. Suddenly a few weeks later, he gets a call from a detective: hey, get these things back. He can’t get them back. The detective says “you don’t want to know who those belonged to!” He got in trouble, but got a plea deal, where he will have to pay $4,000 to Brady. And then he had a series of medical issues and cannot work, so he’s stuck begging for money from passers-by. It’s an unfortunate end to the story.

Junior Seau is somehow still on his feet and thinks that he’s able to continue playing football. At least in a theoretical way. A couple years ago, he retired, only to re-sign with the Patriots a few months later. Seau played for 13 seasons with the San Diego Chargers, 3 with the Dolphins and just those parts of seasons in New England. He says that for now he’s retired. But if the Patriots decide that they would like to have him back, towards the end of October or November, he would be willing to rethink it. Seau has been one of the best players at inside linebacker, with an ability to block almost anything that comes his way. Even at 40 years old, he’s doing very well in his position, one in which some people don’t even make it to 30.

One of the players that we think we’ll miss the most is Mike Vrabel, who was an outstanding presence in the team’s defensive line. We would love to have seen him come back, but he went to Kansas City to play with Matt Cassel in a trade. A lot of people are looking around to see if the Pats will be able to replace him well. They have plenty of defensive players to choose from, however, even if they aren’t quite as good as Vrabel was. They will be able to fill the spot alright. We really want to see Vrabel do well, just not when he’s playing against US! But Crable, Woods, Bruschi and Thomas will all be able to help fill his shoes. Have no fear, my fellow fan, it will be ok!