It is often believed that the NFL preseason doesn’t matter much to fans, and instead only coaches care about it to try and test their players before the real competition begins.
However, that’s not completely true. While the results are meaningless compared to the regular season, when things don’t look good in preseason, people start to worry. If not, look at the Patriots.
New England has gone through many changes this offseason, and its offense doesn’t seem to be responding well. The Patriots decided not to name an Offensive Coordinator after Josh McDaniels left, which only creates even more doubts around the team. Joe Judge, however, doesn’t look worried.
Joe Judge not worried about Patriots’ offense
“I’m not a big guy to take one small clip of something and over magnify it,” Judge said, via Khari Thompson of Boston.com. “I say all the time, the NFL is a league of extremes. It’s one week, what’s the storyline. We’ve got a week in between the games, in this instance we have two weeks in between the games. So it’s what’s the storyline that’s going to run? You can’t chase that. You can’t chase the narratives. You’ve got to show up every day.
“There may be an adjustment here or there, just based on how we match up with something. But preseason games are really much more about getting out there and letting players play. It’s not really scheme heavy, it’s not about game-planning against the opponent. We had competitive practices last week against the Raiders. That’s a great opportunity to go out there and try new things, to work some things you’ve got in the playbook and see how they develop.”
