On Thursday, the Patriots closed out their preseason schedule in a game at MetLife Stadium, losing to the New York Giants 42-10.
There was no Drake. There was no Diggs. There was no Gonzo. There was no Henderson.
With the NFL exhibition calendar moving to three games in 2021, Week 3 of the preseason has become Week 4, where almost none of your household names see the field.
But for a Patriots team that has won eight combined games in the last two years, there were key position battles happening on both sides of the ball for multiple players at a crossroads with their time in New England.
The final score Thursday night doesn’t matter. But what these players were able to show on tape in live game action does.
Here’s your final Ups & Downs column of the preseason:
Ups:
- Kyle Dugger: Kyle Dugger is overqualified to be on the field as late into these preseason games as he is.
For a player who has accomplished what he has as a pro making the salary he’s making, it’s been jarring to see his precipitous fall this training camp season.
But if the six-year pro is going to be out there, he might as well be making plays.
And in the 2nd quarter, Giants backup QB Jameis Winston challenged Dugger on multiple occasions deep downfield, none of which resulted in a Giants touchdown. New York coaches had clearly made Winston well-aware of Dugger’s propensity to get beat over the top, but that wasn’t the case on Thursday.
To put the exclamation point on the performance, Dugger picked off Winston on his final challenge in the end zone, intercepting the former No. 1 overall pick on a 4th and 4 in the back left corner as he got both feet in bounds with 6:10 remaining in the 2nd quarter.
Defensive coordinator Terrell Williams insisted on Tuesday that there was a role for Dugger in his defense. One day later, Andrew Callahan of The Boston Herald reported that Dugger was on the trading block.
The answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Dugger would be an overqualified, overpaid depth piece if he were to remain on this roster for Week 1 against the Raiders. But this team can afford it, and they desperately need as much depth as they can get at every spot.
My gut tells me Dugger’s performance this preseason will be enough to get a team to bite on a trade for late round picks, and he’ll be playing elsewhere by opening weekend.
- Jeremiah Webb: Even in an era of weird numbers at every position (I stand with Tom Brady), a receiver being given a number in the 20s for training camp is usually a bad sign.
And by no means am I saying Jeremiah Webb just played himself onto the roster. One nice preseason finale won’t be enough for the undrafted rookie out of South Alabama.
But let’s give this man his flowers as he likely looks for a new team in a few days.
His first big play of the night came in the middle of the 1st quarter, returning a punt for 22 yards to set up a 1st and 10 from the Giants 40 yard line. He did so with basically no blocking - just kept making dudes miss with a fast, herky-jerky sprint up the middle of the field.
Fast forward to the Patriots’ final drive of the 2nd quarter, where a pair of nice plays from Webb ultimately landed him in this section.
On 2nd and 11 from the Giants 44, third string quarterback Ben Wooldridge hit Webb in the flats, and the 5-foot-11 speedster took the ball up the left sideline for a gain of 17 yards.
Four plays later from the Giants 10 yard line, Wooldridge found Webb again, coming down with a ball in the end zone right at the boundary, cutting New York’s lead to 14-10 heading into halftime. Webb showed great body control to come down with that ball, as he was well defended on a pass that wasn’t perfect.
On a night chock-full of bad for the Patriots backups, No. 29 (on offense) popped.
Good luck to Webb wherever he lands next. I hope he gets a better number.
Bryce Baringer: He’s still got a great leg, guys. And he used it a lot on Thursday.
The 2023 All-Rookie punter averaged 46.9 yards per punt on 7 attempts on the night.
For a guy that started the year strong in 2024, he dipped as the season went along. Maybe that had something to do with being overused, but let’s not relitigate the past.
Let’s hope for two things in 2025:
- We don’t have to see a lot of Baringer
- If we do, he remains solid all season long
Downs:
- Javon Baker: The clock may have struck midnight on Thursday for the man who once told the media on a Zoom call, “I make people in wheelchairs stand up.”
On two targets for the second-year receiver out of UCF, Baker came up catchless. Both were very catchable balls, jarred loose after contact by the defense.
To make matters worse, Baker was called for an offensive pass interference on the opening drive of the second half to set up a 2nd and 25 from the Patriots 20. Two plays later, Bryce Baringer was out on the field for a punt.
For a player who flashed at times during the training camp season, there was momentum for Baker to possibly make the roster as the 6th or 7th receiver, especially if he was going to continue to contribute on special teams.
But with his performance in New York looking a lot like his performance in Minnesota on Saturday, we may have seen everything we need to see from Baker in a Patriots uniform.
Maybe you can hand out some partial credit to Baker for being pushed into Giants return man Dante Miller, who ended up mishandling a punt at the top of the 2nd quarter. The Patriots recovered the muffed punt at the Giants 12, and five plays later they kicked a field goal for their first points of the game.
Sure, give Baker the credit for being downfield to cover the punt. But handing out a hockey assist for a mental mistake by a Giants special teamer feels like a reach.
One of the McCourty brothers said on the Preseason Week 2 broadcast that there was a chance the Patriots keep 7 wide receivers. I thought that was a stretch in the moment, and I feel even more strongly about it now.
With fellow second-year wide receiver Ja’Lynn Polk to undergo season-ending shoulder surgery and with Baker facing a possible cut on Tuesday, it’s amazing we’ve landed here with this pair of young pass catchers after the hype around this tandem coming out of last year’s camp.
- Run Blocking: You’re starting offensive line wasn’t out there, so nothing to freak out about, per se.
But as the combinations along the O-line changed throughout the night, one thing remained constant:
The run blocking was not good.
A steady stream of tackles in the backfield spelled with tackles at the line of scrimmage led to a box score that reads 35 carries for 110 yards, good for 3.1 yards per carry.
Mix in a holding call on guard Cole Strange on a 1st and goal from the Giants 1 yard line at 14:00 in the 2nd quarter, and it’s safe to say it was a bad day overall for a group of guys with so much to prove in 2025.
- Andy Borregales: The battle at kicker has been one of the best so far this camp, with the draft pick out of Miami in Andy Borregales and the undrafted journeyman from Virginia Tech in Parker Romo.
For the second straight preseason game, Borregales missed a field goal. Last week it was from 50+, but it was an absolute shank. This week it was from 49, with the kick sailing just right of the upright.
It’s just not what you want to see from a kicker when you’ve used draft capital on him, especially after the recent failed experiment of Chad Ryland in New England.
Romo, on the other hand, has been a perfect 5 for 5 on kicks this preseason (2/2 FGA, 3/3 XP). And if it means anything, Romo has been the first player on the field almost every single day of training camp.
I have to imagine Borregales will win this job given his position as a draft pick, but don’t be surprised if the leash is short with Romo having the preseason he’s had. If they can somehow keep Romo on the practice squad, it would be a good way to keep pushing Borregales in the early part of this season.
- Marcus Bryant: On the Patriots’ opening drive on offense, I had right tackle Marcus Bryant down for allowing two QB pressures, one of which led to a tipped ball at the line of scrimmage.
On the first play of the Patriots’ second possession, Bryant was called for an illegal formation penalty for a loss of 5 yards.
Additionally, Bryant is a part of that poor effort run blocking that we discussed earlier.
Despite being a rookie 7th round pick, Bryant is currently this team’s swing tackle, thought to be the man who will fill the void if either rookie Will Campbell or veteran Morgan Moses needs to miss time.
Behind Bryant are the likes of Vederian Lowe and Demontrey Jacobs. And we’ve seen that song and dance before. It’s not pretty.
It might be a lot to expect a big year from Bryant as a rookie. But the Patriots might need just that if one thing leads to another.
Fingers crossed that we don’t need to cross that bridge.
Some Good, Some Bad:
- Jack Gibbens: First, the bad.
On the opening series of the game, a former Patriot made his former team pay, as Gunner Olszewski had a 50-yard YAC-filled catch on 2nd and 6 from the Giants 39 yard line.
With everyone on the Giants covered down field, Olszewski broke free underneath the coverage in an area of the field being manned by linebacker Jack Gibbens. Gibbens lost sight of Jaxson Dart’s safety valve as the QB ran towards the line of scrimmage, and the former All-Pro return man turned on the jets.
Three plays later, Dart found tight end Greg Dulcich on a slant for a 7-yard touchdown.
Gibbens is someone that profiles more as a depth piece, someone you’ll be seeing way more on special teams than you will on defense come Week 1. So the 26-year-old having this type of gaffe in pass coverage isn’t the end of the world.
But with the Patriots’ depth being a major weakness heading into the season, this is something to file away for a rainy day if Gibbens is needed for significant defensive snaps at some point this season.
Now, the good.
Gibbens showed his pass rushing chops in the 1st quarter, sacking Dart for a 6-yard loss on a 1st and 10 from the Giants 23 yard line.
On the next possession, Gibbens made Dart pay for not sliding on a 23-yard scramble on 4th and 4, hitting the rookie QB hard from behind to force a fumble that was recovered by New England. Unfortunately for Gibbens, this turnover was nullified by a defensive holding penalty from Jabrill Peppers.
But remember - this is the preseason, where the tape is more important than the on-field result.
If Gibbens is deployed exclusively in pass rushing situations this season, his hard-hitting high-motor play style could be useful in certain situations.
- Jaxson Dart: The Giants rookie throws a really, really nice ball.
Before leaving the game with an injury (more on that in a minute), Dart was 6 of 12 for 81 yards and a touchdown. And while a 50% completion rate is nothing to write home about, you could see both the arm talent and touch on almost every attempt.
I don’t want to put too much stock into anything we see in the preseason finale given the level of competition on the field, but I can confidently say that the Giants are wasting everybody’s time by trotting Russell Wilson out there as the starter for Week 1. Get the most you can out of your exciting young rookie.
The reason Dart is popping up in “Some Ups, Some Downs” is because of the play we wrote about with Gibbens, where the rookie fumbled after taking a big hit from behind from the Patriots linebacker.
Dart could have slid, and it would have been a first down for New York. There was no need to try and stretch that play an extra couple yards, especially given the stakes (none).
I hope young Drake Maye was paying attention as Dart went to the blue medical tent to be evaluated for a concussion. He was cleared, but the whole thing could have been avoided from the jump.
The Patriots will have two more days of practice - Sunday and Monday - before final roster cutdown day on Tuesday. That’s when the team will go from 91 players down to 53.
From there, more moves will transpire, as New England still carries a league-high $60 million in cap space to use on the best players cut from across the league.
And as we learned countless times throughout the Belichick era, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Stay locked in to WEEI and WEEI.com for all the latest on Patriots’ roster moves.