Not quite ready

KIM KLEMENT/US PRESSWIRE

“We didn’t do anything offensively except lose yardage and turn the ball over, so yeah, it was tough to watch any of what we did offensively. There wasn’t anything. We throw them the ball. Can’t make any yards in the running game. Third-and-long all day. Yeah, it was real hard to watch.”

That was Bill Belichick's assessment after the Pats dropped their preseason game down in Tampa 30-28. Who says Belichick isn't honest? That's as honest as you get. No Skinny Rex B.S. Just "we suck." That's what I want from my coach.

And, after three preseason games, he's right. The starters on offense have done almost nothing so far. It will be interesting to see how much -- if at all -- they play in the practice finale next week against little Manning and the Giants. The starters usually leave their pads at home for the last preseason game. But this year Brady and Lloyd and the rest of them might need to play another half just to build a little momentum. Then again, the Pats open against Tennessee and Arizona. They should be able to win those games playing just decent football but, as they say ... Any Given Sunday.

Brady has spent more time sitting on the turf than he has tossing touchdowns. He's been nailed and fumbled the ball in both games he has played in. It's a collective bad effort so far. The line has yet to round in to form. The receivers -- especially Lloyd who might want to ditch #85 -- have yet to really click. And the running game has been a non-factor.

That is my biggest concern at the moment. The running game. Sure, the offensive line is a big part of that and the offensive line is everyone's concern. But so far I'm not seeing much from second-year guys Vereen and Ridley. Especially Vereen. And he got banged up again. Ridley did rush for 87 yards on 16 carries against the Bucs, but 29 of those came on one play. Take that one away and it's 58 yards on 15 carries. Not bad. Not great. The thing that is missing so far is the thing that Bennie brought to the table. The ability to turn a no-gain play into two or three yards so that it's 2nd-and-7 instead of 2nd-and-11. That's a pretty important element to any offense.

The defense, which had been pretty strong so far, took a bit of step back last night. Tampa opened the game with a nice 8-play, 68-yard touchdown drive that saw a lot of open receivers. The Pats secondary looked a little too much like last year's team than one wants to see.

But it's preseason and the games don't count. The Pats are 1-2? Nope. They are 0-0. They key is to stay healthy. Tampa won last night but lost a few key players to injury. The Pats -- so far -- have only suffered one major injury to linebacker Dane Fletcher. A tough loss but not a devastating loss. Unless Chung's injury is worse than the team is letting on, the Pats will start the season in good shape physically.

The same can't be said about the team's game performance shape. As Belichick said, the team has a lot of work to do to get to the point they need to be to start the season. A lot. Anyone who says the NFL training camp/preseason is too long need only watch last night's game. The Pats have one more preseason game and two more weeks of practices.

They need it.