one down <> three to go

meaningless breeding ground for injury preseason game #1 is seemingly safely in the books ... the patriots went down to philly and came away with an "interesting" 27-25 win ... it would have been "interesting" even if the eagles had won 27-25 ... so what did i learn

after 9 seasons of a base 3-4 defense ... what we saw almost exclusively last night was a base 4-3 defense ... the current roster of linebackers is a vulnerability ... the middle linebacker is a star in the making ... and there is a lot of big, tall talent along the defensive line ... this mix seems a much better fit for the 4-3 than the 3-4

bernard pollard shreaded tom brady's knee ... tom brady had reconstructive knee surgery ... tom brady had been absent from football for 11 months ... the super bowl mvp married a super model and is expecting a super child ... apparently one of those crazy dream sequences ... except for the part about wife and expecting ... tom brady played 4 series/24 snaps ... his production <> 10/15 <> 100 yards <> 2 td <>1 int ... randy caught 3 for 54 yards with the long being 35 ... brady/moss would have hooked up for a longer 46 yarder if asante hadnt grabbed randy's arm at the last minute ... pass interferance got the yards ... touchdown passes were to a guy who wasnt even a part of the record breaking 2007 offense ... welcome chris baker "the touchdown maker" ... bottom line is tom brady looked excellent considering it really wasn't a dream sequence ... and he still appears to have a favorite receiver ... the open receiver

speaking of open receivers ... who the devil is julian edelman ... 7th round (232 overall) draft pick from kent state ... played the slot receiver with the first team ... wes welker didnt dress for this one ... endelman catches a game high 5 for 37 yards ... looked like the slot machine's all grown up love child ... oh yeah, endelman also returned a punt 75 yards for a td

its possible the patriots have found their safety net in case of injury or lapse into incompetence to matt light ... 4th of 4 second rounders sebastian vollmer played exclusively on the left side ... the protector of tom brady's backside

laurence maroney ... still indecisive ... still running east/west ... anyone still not understanding why teammates filled maroney's locker with diapers back in '07 ... if laurence maroney doesnt learn to run downhill soon ... he will spend his 4th and last year as a patriot on the sideline buried behind sammy morris, fred taylor, kevin faulk and benjarvis green-ellis

secondary ... impressive overall ... performances give us hope this group will be much improved over last year ... second year cb jonathan wilhite <> 2nd round rookies safety patrick chung and cb darius butler <> free agent signee cb leigh bodden <> emerging star safety brandon meriweather ... all got significant playing time ... free agent signee cb shawn springs did not dress for this one

linebackers ... this may well be the weakest, least impressive collection of linebackers of the belichick era ... beyond outside lb adalius thomas and 2nd year inside lb jerod mayo ... the linebacking group is a bunch of jags <> tedy bruschi <> pierre woods <> gary guyton <> shawn crable <> paris lenon ... ugh ... in the event of injury, replacing either a.d. or mayo from this group is a scary thought... mayo wore the miked helmet calling defensive signals ... that job was handled last season by mr vrabel

back-up quarterback ... a lot is being made of the fact andrew walter followed tfb rather than heir apparent to matt cassel's spot on the sideline kevin o'connell ... there may be some truth to the notion the move was some sort of wake-up call to o'connell ... but the bottom line is belichick needs to find out quick if walter has the potential to play in the partiots system ... and the best way to evaluate is live game action ... two thoughts on his performance ... he's been in new england 10 days and he wasnt playing with the same weapons brady was ... there was no julian endelman

tight ends ... competition in practice rumored to be strong ... ben watson didnt dress ... chris baker caught the 2 brady td passes ... david thomas lined up at fullback a number of times ... alex smith and tyson devree were not memorable ... it is possible the team will carry 4 te's with no fullback on the roster