Sports Web Blog!

If you’re up to date with the NFL, then you can see that the Patriots are in trouble. But if you listened to what they said in the wake of a third straight lackluster preseason performance, a 27-17 it wasn’t as close as the final score drubbing by the Eagles last night, then things are not as bad as they look in this awful, 0-3 preseason.

 While you would have expected self-flagellation after another unsatisfactory performance, the New England Patriots tried to strike a confident and positive tone after the game. Panic? What panic? “We can’t be up and down with the media and the fans because that’s what it is, it’s a roller coaster,” said cornerback Ellis Hobbs. “You can’t allow your emotions to set in especially so early in the season, where the season hasn’t even begun. I’m not necessarily saying we don’t have problems that we need to correct, but [it’s] having the sense and poise to say these problems can be corrected and it’s not too late.”Right now, as far as we’re concerned we’re 0-3 in the preseason, but we’re still 0-0.”

 But something is clearly wrong with this team, at least in the preseason, and it goes further than the absence of quarterback Tom Brady, who missed his third straight preseason game with a sore right foot. The team that former Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel returned to play against turn off no resemblance to the one he left, having gone from perfect to perplexing. The Patriots followed a familiar and distressing formula. Matt Cassel (8 of 14 for 60 yards, sacked three times) struggled, the defense was destroyed, and an overall lack of execution permeated everything New England did.

The quarterback Donovan McNabb had a terrific game, with a promising performance at Pittsburgh, in the first preseason game. His performance was only rivaled by maybe just one player, the rookie DeSean Jackson. The receiver/punt was continuously found blazing past defenders both before and after catches.

Eagles safety Sean Considine said:  “His ability to get open and his ability to get downfield have been impressive,” “He can create separation and the quarterbacks have a lot of confidence in him, which is pretty unusual for a rookie. It didn’t take long for them to figure out he was getting open.”

And it hasn’t taken long for Jackson to figure out the complicated West Coast offense of Reid and offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg.

“He is one of the faster ones that I have coached,” said Mornhinweg of Jackson’s skill to grasp the offense. “There are a couple of things that he has that allows him to be a really fast learner. First of all, he’s a natural player. His movements are just natural. He does a lot of things that we teach that he just does naturally. Secondly, he’s really sharp, football wise. Really, for him it takes him once or twice, maybe three reps, and he’s got it. He can take it from the classroom to the field very quickly as well. Those are all good things. We’ve got a long way to go and he’s got a long way to go. He’s done a nice job up to this point.”