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The other QBs get their chance

BY PAUL KENYON
Journal Sports Writer

FOXBORO -- The numbers were strong, even if the conditions under which they were obtained were not exactly typical.

How about 17 completions in 25 attempts for 198 yards with one interception, and an offense that produced 22 first downs and 27 points?

That’s what the Patriots received from their quarterbacks in their 27-20 victory over the Giants Thursday night, even though Tom Brady never got off the bench. On a night when it was difficult to get excited about anything, with the regulars all watching from the sidelines, the work by the backup quarterbacks had to be encouraging, at the least, for Patriots’ fans.

There are some questions the Pats hope they never have to answer this season, one of the biggest being what would happen if Brady was injured. But the two guys who will be the guys called upon if something does happen to Brady -- Matt Cassel and Vinny Testaverde -- both looked solid.

''We went out there and executed and did a good job tonight as a good lead-in to the regular season,'' Cassel said. ''Everybody gave 110 percent effort. That’s all you can ask.''

Cassel started and played nearly a half. He was 10-for-14 for 99 yards and guided the team on a 13-play, 87-yard march as well as another drive that resulted in a field goal.

''As an offense, we moved the ball pretty well. We were moving up and down the field,'' Cassel said in a fair assessment. ''Overall, I’d say our execution was pretty good. There are a lot of things we still need to work on , but getting out there and getting another start under my belt, even if it is preseason, is a great experience for me. I tried to do the best with it.

''I feel confident,'' he added. ''I’ve been here for three years. I feel confident in the system. I feel confident in the guys around me. God forbid, if something was to happen . . . ''

When Cassel went out, Testaverde, the 21-year veteran who rejoined the team after the completion of two-a-days, took over. He kept the offense moving as he went 7-for-11 for 99 yards and showed a nice touch on several of his passes. He appreciated the chance to see his first action of the season.

''It’s always important for players to get as much work as possible, whatever the circumstances may be,'' he said.

''Overall, I was satisfied. I think there are some things there to be worked on, but going out there seeing coverages, the speed of the game was where I would like it to be. It slowed down for me. Everything wasn’t running real fast in my mind. If you’re seeing things good you can work through the other mistakes you make.''

Rookie Matt Gutierrez, who seems ticketed for the practice squad, took over late and completed 7 of 9 passes, all of them short ones, for a total of 48 yards.

Posted by Paul Kenyon  at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Bill Belichick post-game press conference

Courtesy of the New England media relations department:

BB: We got a look at a lot of our young players tonight. They got a lot of extensive playing time. I really respect the way they played. I thought they competed well. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was certainly competitive. I thought we had a lot of guys play well. I think it will be interesting to look at the film here tomorrow morning to see how some things came together. The Giants have a good football team. We saw some competition against some of their better players. It will be interesting to see how all of that looks tomorrow. I respect the job that they did tonight. I thought overall we played a fairly solid game.

Can we take the way you played your personnel to mean that you are pretty happy with where your starters are?
I wouldn’t say that. I said last week, those guys that played a lot in the Carolina game, or that have played a lot through the course of the preseason, were going to play less tonight. The guys who didn’t play as much in that game played more tonight. That’s really the way we broke it up.

With [Brandon] Meriweather at safety, are you at the point where you can add to his plate and take advantage of his versatility?
He’s worked there some all of camp. He’s worked at safety. He’s worked at the nickel back. He’s worked at corner. He’s gotten good exposure on our secondary and also in the kicking game. He’s gotten a lot of reps at different spots through the course of camp.

Do you envision him doing more work at safety than he has to this point?
We’ll have to see. We’ll have to see.

Were you encouraged with what you saw out there tonight from him?
We’ll take a look at the tape. I thought there were some good things. There were a couple of plays that looked like he might have been a little out of position on, but I think that’s true of everybody. I thought he did some good things. He made a nice play on that in-cut on the second series, or whenever it was. We’ll take a look at the whole body of work rather than just try to go on one or two plays.

Any impressions of [Chris] Hanson’s effort tonight?
I thought it was okay. I thought it was okay. I’ve seen a lot worse, put it that way.

What went into that decision to bring him in?
To try to improve our team. That’s what goes into every decision.

What was it about him you thought was an upgrade?
I thought he had a chance to compete with the performance that we’ve had through the first three games.

Was it tough to see a kid who has worked as hard as Oscar Lua has go down like that?
Sure. We’ll see what the story is on that. I don’t know exactly what the extent of it is. But, yes, you hate to see anybody get injured.

Does that complicate roster moves when somebody gets injured tonight and you only have two days to evaluate the severity?
Yes, that never makes it any easier. You’d like to have as much information [as you can]. You’d like for it to be as clean as possible and when there is a degree of uncertainty and you have to make a guesstimate and just go on partial information, then that’s what you have to do. That’s certainly not the ideal situation. You’d like for it to be more complete.

Were you happy to see some of the kids that you had in there to begin with go up against the Giants’ starters for a series?
Yes. I thought it was good because we really played the same group of people the entire game and it was against different players with the Giants. That will be part of the evaluation too, to see how they played against some of those guys in the first quarter. They had some good players in there. They have a good team.

Vinny [Testaverde] looked like he had a nice touch.
I thought all three quarterbacks did a pretty solid job of running the operation. The Giants came with a decent amount of pressure. They changed some looks up. I thought all three guys did a decent job. We got the ball down the field a little bit. Some plays were better than others, but I thought we handled ourselves okay at the quarterback position.

Was there a certain thing that goes into dressing players but not playing them? Is there something that you want them to get out of the whole thing?
The only players who didn’t dress were the ones that had an injury situation.

But if you’re not going to play a guy, is there a reason why you dress them?
Yes, to go through the regular process. Part of our preparation in the preseason is to get ready for the regular season and that’s mentally going through situations. Nobody has played a full game. Whenever the players aren’t in there, they should be attentive to the situation and be into the game just like they’re going to in a regular season game. Nobody has played in every play in preseason. That goes for everybody.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

CJ Jones shines in Pats victory

BY ROBERT LEE
Journal Sports Writer

FOXBORO – C.J. Jones is one of several players on the bubble to make the Patriots' roster. But after Thursday night’s performance against the New York Giants, he might have played well enough to earn a spot.

Not only did Jones catch three passes for 59 yards in New England’s 27-20 victory over the Giants, he returned four kickoffs for 117 yards, averaging 29.3 yards per kickoff return, and returned two punts for 33 yards, averaging 16.5 yards per punt return.

To put that in perspective, Justin Miller of the New York Jets led the NFL in kickoff returns with an average of 28.3 yards a kickoff return last year, and Pacman Jones, of the Tennessee Titans, led the NFL in punt returns last season, averaging 12.9 yards per punt return.

''It was great to get an opportunity out there,'' said Jones, who only had one catch for nine yards prior to last night’s game. ''Coach [Bill] Belichick gave me a chance and I just tried to make the most of it. I was just trying to help the team in any way I could. I tried to get positive yards all the time and just tried to catch everything I could get.''

Jones said that it was all or nothing for him.

''This game was very important. [Belichick] gave us a chance to come out here and make plays and when you get that chance you just have to go ahead and make the most of it and make the decision hard for them at the end of the day,'' Jones said.

Vinny Testaverde hooked up with Jones on two separate occasions during the Patriots ' second-half opening six play, 70-yard touchdown drive that gave them a 17-7 lead.

The first was a 23-yard pass on first-and-10 from the New England 48. That gave the Pats a first down on the Giants' 29-yard line.

''I just put it all out there,'' Jones said. ''I had nothing to hide or save. I just did what they told me to do.''

On first and goal from the 9-yard line later in the drive, Testaverde hit Jones on a short screen pass toward the right sideline. Jones put two moves on New York defensive back Aaron Ross and sprinted toward the end zone. He was brought down eight yards later at the 1. Quinton Smith punched in the touchdown on a run up the middle.

''Vinny was doing a good job finding me in the holes,'' Jones said. ''I just had to be there when he called upon me. I’m just thankful for him . . . It was cool being out there with him.''

Jones is averaging 31 yards per kickoff return (8-for-248) this preseason, which is important because Belichick has said that excelling on special teams is a good way to make the Patriots roster.

''You can look at our roster in the last few years, or even since I’ve been here, and find plenty of players on the 53-man roster who had a significant amount of playing time in the kicking game and had very little offensively or defensively,'' Belichick said. ''There’s no question that there is a place for those players on our roster and they’re important players to us. Some players give us offensive and defensive depth and fewer plays in the kicking game. Other players give us a lot of plays in the kicking game and fewer plays as depth on offense and defense. Some guys are more balanced. When you put your roster together, you have to find a way to get all of those bases covered. There’s no question that special teams is a big factor in the makeup of your team and in some roster decisions. No doubt about it.''

Jones, who's never played in a regular-season NFL game, was signed by the Patriots as a free agent on June 7. He said he's not worried about getting cut because he's been through this process before.

He was originally signed by the Cleveland Browns as a rookie free agent on May 2, 2003, and played on the Browns practiced squad before being allocated by the Browns to NFL Europe in the spring of 2005. He was released Cleveland on Sept. 3, 2005, after spending the entire 2004 season on the team’s practice squad.

After catching 10 passes for 118 yards for the Cologne Centurions in NFL Europe during the 2005 season, Jones was signed by the Seattle Seahawks on Jan. 5, 2006. He was allocated by the Seahawks to NFL Europe in the spring of 2006 and caught 7 passes for 82 yards for the Berlin Thunder.

''I’ve been through it a couple of times so I just take my mind off it, pray about it, and just hope that I got enough film for other teams if this team is not the one,'' Jones said. '' . . . That’s my main objective. I was playing for all of the other teams if this team is not the one for me. I think I did enough to show my skills for other teams to see.''

Posted by Rob Lee  at 11:26 PM | Permalink

UPDATE: Lua will not return

Rookie linebacker Oscar Lua is laying on the sidelines getting his right leg worked on. The USC product was calling plays with the defense -- New England apparently had all its players in uniform for show, as players like LeKevin Smith, Willie Andrews and Dante Wesley started the game -- and was hurt a few plays into this opening drive.

UPDATE: It has just been announced that Lua will not return to the game. Not a good sign for the sentimental favorite.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 8:10 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

A little late to the party, but the gang's (almost) all here...

For a while, it looked like the Patriots would be sending just the kicking team onto the field tonight. Up until about five minutes ago, only Lonie Paxton, Stephen Gostkowski, Chris Hanson and Matt Cassel (the holder) were the only New England players warming up, while numerous Giants players were.

But now, pretty much the entire Pats roster -- including number 12 -- are out in uniform going through warm-up drills. If they play, we sure feel foolish...

Asante Samuel is not on the field.

Tight end Kyle Brady, who returned to practice this week, is not out there; we don't see Rodney Harrison either; Harrison wasn't at practice on Tuesday. Eugene Wilson has not been spotted.

However, Junior Seau, Kevin Faulk and Ty Warren are on the field. Seau and Faulk missed last week's game, and Warren hasn't been in uniform since getting injured on the first series of the exhibition opener in Tampa.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Welcome to Gillette

Hey all --

It is a beautiful evening here at Gillette Stadium, where (surprise!) very few players are out getting warmed up.

For the Patriots, long snapper Lonie Paxton was the first player on the field, and as of right now, none of his teammates are out there with him.

The starters, as usual, are not expected to see much, if any, play time.

Freshly-signed punter Chris Hanson is expected to be in uniform tonight.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Baugher out, C. Hanson in

The New England Patriots have made the surprise move of cutting punter Danny Baugher, signing veteran Chris Hanson.

Hanson, 30, is a seven-year veteran who has spent the bulk of his career with Jacksonville, though he was in camp in New Orleans this year. Last season, 20 of his 58 punts -- average distance 40.6 yards -- were downed inside the 20-yard line.

Baugher seemingly had beaten out two other punters, veteran Josh Miller and untested Tom Malone, to win the job in New England before the move.

The move was first reported in today's New Bedford Standard-Times print edition.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments 0