Game Preview: Preseason 1: Pats vs. New Orleans

Tonight should be slightly more exciting than last week. The real excitement will be simply seeing the field and hearing the crowd at Gillette Stadium in a little more than an hour from now. Incidentally, the regular season starts 3 weeks from tonight.

For anyone who hasn't figured this out yet, the reason Doug Flutie didn't play last week was because the Patriots were in Cincinnati. You might not believe this, but I'm telling you, Bill Belichick wants Flutie to take the field for the first time back in a Patriots uniform to be in New England. I bet you don't think Belichick doesn't care about stuff like that, but you should know better by now. It's the absolute little things just like this at which he is so skillful. Psychological edge. Anyway, expect Flutie to take the field and expect the rumble at Gillette Stadium to register 5.5 on the Richter Scale.

What else to look for? With the "real" starters in, this is the beginning of the "real" test for the coaches. It's all about communication. If a play comes in late to the offense, someone is going to hear about it tomorrow. With a little luck, someone in the broadcast booth will be conscious enough to at least recognize this. I wouldn't hold my breath.

Take a look and see who the starting receivers are, who the return men are, who the linebackers are. Who they are and how they perform is going to go a long way to determining who takes the field first against the Raiders in 21 nights.

How much will we see Troy Brown? Does Rohan Davey get enough time and perform well enough to save his spot on this team? Who's going to make the big special teams hit that solidifies his position in the minds of the coaches? Which linebacker steps up to show he's the leader to step into Tedy Bruschi's shoes? Will Logan Mankins flatten someone? Will Matt Light practice his matador mastery? (If you know a good verb form of "matador," post a comment.)

It's less than an hour until kickoff, and this is one of the lamest items I've ever written, so I'll quit while I'm treading water.