Alright, fellas, the preseason is over, and, from what I can tell, almost nothing has changed.

The Pats can still start off fast and deal blowouts - As show in the first two games. This is what we saw last year against the Bears, Jets, Dolphins, Bills, etc at the end of the year. Get off to a fast start and watch as the other teams only dig a bigger hole for themselves.

....But they're also vulnerable to late-game collapses - This happened in the Giants game, and to a lesser extent against Tampa. I don't care if its their first, third, or twelfth team, I'm tired of seeing it. Ideally, a team scores 1/4 of their points in the fourth quarter. Teams like the Jets and Colts, however, don't often do this, and the Pats need to adapt to dealing with it.

I felt like the Colts-Bengals game + the Pats-Giants game was basically a summery of the 2009 season - Pats are up but then fall, and Colts are down but win all in the fourth quarter. Its probably what I hate most about football.

The defense is more aggressive, but still has a bend-but-don't-break tendency - Against the Jags it was utter domination. Against the Lions, not so much. If a goal of a defense is to run out the game and preserve big leads, I'm not sure I trust ours yet. If the goal of the defense is to feed off the offense's momentum, I trust our defense 100%. If the goal of the defense is to generate momentum, I don't think I trust it, but it looks a hell of alot better then it did.

The O-line will still be to blame for passing failures - 2007 SB, 2009 Ravens, 2010 Jets, 2011 Lions.

Its preseason. I know. Everything we've seen is meaningless when it comes to the regular season. Still, this kind of speculation and prediction hurts nobody, and chances are at least some of it may be right.

Due to the creation of this thread, I've deleted the Lions thread from last week. I hope nobody cares. I'll be doing throughout the season so that the site doesn't get clogged with my posts, unless any of you would want to see old "thoughts" threads remain. If you have any complaint about the thoughts threads and what I'll be doing with them, tell me now.