Bedard: 3 up and 3 down prior to week 1 of the Patriots 2024 season
Greg Bedard of BostonSportsJournal.com joined Felger and Mazz on Tuesday and gave his 3 up and 3 down for the New England Patriots ahead of the 2024 season.
3 UP
KEION WHITE
Greg Bedard: I feel good about him replacing Judon. I think he’s going to be a force on all three downs. I’ll be interested to see if he gets matched up against Trent Brown this week, who is the starting right tackle for the Bengals going into this game. But I think Keion is primed and ready to have a big season.
HUNTER HENRY
Greg Bedard: He’s coming back from an injury, so I don’t know how effective he’s going to be Week 1. But traditionally Jacoby Brissett loves the tight ends. This is a very tight end friendly offense. If he’s not productive then they’re having issues.
BRYCE BARINGER
Greg Bedard: He’s going to be used a lot and he looks really good. I think he’s going to have a huge year. I think he’s going to be up for Pro Bowl and all pro considering the amount of times he’s going to get the punt this year. He’s going to get a lot of work.
3 DOWN
JACOBY BRISSETT
Greg Bedard: A lot of people bring up like he doesn’t throw a lot of interceptions. And I think in those four seasons I think he had 17 interceptions when he started, a lot for the Colts and the Browns. And there was a Dolphins season where he also started a lot for them. But in that same time he also had 55 turnover worthy plays. So I think there’s a little bit of luck involved. He’s a half a beat slow on everything and it’s going to get him into trouble.
INTERIOR RUN DEFENSE
Greg Bedard: It might not show up Week 1 because there’s no real film on this, but I think once they get out there and they see who the Patriots are putting next to Davon Godchaux on the first couple downs…but as soon as it’s on film, teams are going to say we just have to take care of Godchaux and we can just run over the right defensive tackle. And so I think the Patriots are going to have to run blitz a lot when it comes down to it. I just don’t feel very good about their interior run defense.
WIDE ZONE RUNNING
Greg Bedard: What they’re doing, it takes time for guys get used to each other and get used to the timing. It’s a timing precision type blocking scheme and it’s going to look rough for a while.
