What to Watch for in Tonight's Patriots Preseason Opener 8-13-26

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That is within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points. It reverses the lead of 50 to 47% that Susan Collins had on former Democratic nominee Graham Platner. With each party staunchly backing its nominee, the current separation may come from independents, who in this poll favored Jackson, 46 to 42%. Another factor could be the state's opinion of President Trump, 39% favorable, 59%. Unfavorable. Now, you Hampshire today. Good morning. This is an answer today. I am Chris Ryan. I appreciate you joining us for the shows. It comes to you from the Millyard in Manchester this morning. Thank you so much for being with us. On that poll for a second, and we've highlighted the fact that the polling has been, as has been the case really for the last number of years, problematic in many of these primary races across the country. But two key things there I want to point at. First is... The enthusiasm gap is going to be problematic for Republicans. Democrats are very enthusiastic to vote. Republicans are trying to get their base as jazzed up as the Democrats are, but that's going to be a challenge. The second piece is independence. And how do you convince independence not to go in a different direction in this upcoming election? And I feel that Democrats have a distinct advantage just by being the other option. Those are things we'll be exploring for you over the next several months as we get set for the midterm elections. And of course, the state primary here in the granted state coming up on the day after Labor Day, September the 8th. Tonight, the New England Patriots will debut, sort of, in their first preseason game. We'll see some key position group battles and get a second. sense for the depth of this roster, mostly, as the Patriots will take on the cults tonight. We got a really good sense as to where things are at for the Patriots in the joint practice, where we saw starter versus starter action side by side on Tuesday. Joining us right now, WMUR sports director Mike Cronin, as the game will be on WMUR tonight with the opening kickoff around 730. Good morning, Mike. Good morning, Chris. Great to be with you this morning. Appreciate joining us for the show. So what are the key things that you're looking for in this game outside of the first one, which is who's going to be out there to start things? Yeah, just making sure that nobody injures themselves on this turf field, right? We want to see and make sure that everyone's okay. Second time that they had to replace the turf since the World Cup. But no, I think what I'm looking for, Chris, tonight is just from a depth perspective, who are we going to see out there? Maybe we get to see some receivers. I mean, obviously we're not going to see guys like AJ Brown or Romeo Dobbs, but I'd be interested to see a few.

if any of the receivers are getting some looks out there because right now the Patriots have too many chefs in the kitchen and the receiver room. So wondering if we see anyone out there and if we can glean anything from that as to who will make the final 53-man roster. Also would like to see, you know, from the offensive line perspective, I mean, I don't expect that we'll see. Too many of the starters out there, but a guy like Caleb Lomu, we're going to see him make his debut with the Patriots out there. And just, you know, it's at this point of the season where we're not going to see a lot of the starters. Who's going to show up and kind of be the darling of the preseason? Last year it was a guy like Efton Chisholm who really shined. Of course, then we didn't see him that much during the regular season. We did see him get some reps towards the end of the season and into the postseason. But usually there's always one guy who comes out and is a star during the preseason. So who is that going to be this year? Is it going to be a rookie? Is it going to be one of these undrafted guys who... comes in and makes an impact and kind of makes his case for making the final 53-man roster. So that's always kind of a fun storyline to watch, Chris. Yeah, good setup there. I want to play this clip here with Efton Chisholm, who spoke after the Patriots Joint Practice on Tuesday and was talking about, you know, how the wide receivers really like one another, but there's also this competitiveness, which is taking place as well, which I asked him about. How would you describe the balance between the

We also kind of compete with her response to the money. Yeah, I think that's kind of the cool thing we got about our room is that, shoot, everyone cares about each other. You know, obviously, we all know it's a competition at the end of the day, but we all want to see each other succeed. So when we see each other making plays out there, you see everyone celebrate. And I think that's the cool thing about this room. So there's seven wide receivers right now, A.J. Brown, Romeo Dobbs, Kishon, Booty, DeMario Douglas, Mack Susan Collins, Kyle Williams, and Efton Chisholm. Chisholm to me, and every time I watch him, he gets better, right? And he wins matchups. And he also has a special team side of things as well, where he's a key contributor there. And I just see, you know, the next Julian Edelman, Wes Welker, every single time you watch him. So to me, I think that he makes the team. And is it Kyle Williams, who's the odd man out? Do they trade booty? DeMario Douglas, who I think also has a role with the team, but him and. and Chisholm also seemed to be kind of complimentary of one another? It's tough because one of those guys is going to have to go, you would think. I mean, Kyle Williams kind of shined in spots last year. He didn't have a terribly big workload, but he had a couple of really impressive touchdowns. And Chisholm, like you said, I really like this guy. I think they should keep him even if he's not productive on the receiver route. He gives you some. some good looks on the special team side of things. And like you said, he's just, he's a workhorse and he just seems to get better every time he's out there. So. I still think that Kishan Booty might be the odd man out, and they might still trade him at some point. But even then, you say to yourself, well, what if someone goes down with an injury? What if a guy like A.J. Brown goes down or Romeo Dobbs, then Kishon is a perfect plug-in-place there for that. But it does feel like there's a lot of repetitiveness in this receiver room at the moment. Someone's got to go. I'm glad I don't have to make that decision because I just like what all these different receivers offer. So it's tough. It's a tough decision to make. So to me, the standout performer piece is always the interesting one in the preseason. And to me, what I'm going to be looking for is the backup quarterback spot. And... Tommy DeVito looked good, and he got all the backup reps in the practice, the joint practice on Tuesday. But Baron Morton, I liked as well. I watched him on Monday. He looked good. And I'm interested to see how he performs versus DeVito performs, because that's kind of the easiest one to glean, right, is the two backup quarterbacks. And it clearly defined, I would say, at this point, DeVito is the backup, and Morton is the third string. Can Morton show that he's better than DeVito in the preseason and make a claim to being the backup? To me, that's one of the kind of the low-hanging fruit when it comes to the position battles and, you know, a guy that can stand out. If Morton kills it and looks great, then all of a sudden it's like, okay, DeVito, is he really the backup? I think that that's the one area that's kind of that I'm looking at the most.

It's probably one of the more interesting storylines tonight, certainly, Chris. I mean, you got to imagine that DeVito is going to get the start and he'll give play to Morton. And so Morton will get his chance. Yeah, I would think so, right? I would think that he would really have a chance to make an impression on the Patriots. And this is really it. This is the biggest night of his life, essentially, which is funny to think about it from that perspective. But this is the opportunity he has to kind of rise in the depth chart, so to speak. So, you know, it's, it'll be interesting to see how he responds out there. and who he's throwing to also. So, yeah, it's always fun. It's fun to watch these things to unfold and see if guys can really make their case to be on the final 53-band roster. And for a young quarterback like that, trying to make his way in the NFL, this is a... This is everything. So you've got to imagine he'll be playing his tail off to try to make an impression on the Patriots. And that's one of the more interesting things to see. So we'll see how it goes. Yeah, I like to Morton a lot at Texas Tech. I love Eli Raritan and loved what he did at Notre Dame. So I think that... He's an interesting player to watch tonight because that's one of the areas they don't have a lot of depth right now per se is at the tight end spot. In terms of the offensive line, I just don't think we're going to see enough of the starters to get a feel for how cohesive this unit is. And if this is a big step forward from last year, so I don't think we get to see that tonight. But I'm watching backup quarterbacks and seeing who's the better out of those two. And so what's Eli Raritan's presence in this game? Because we're probably going to see a lot of him. at tight end on the defensive side of things. There's some questions about the cornerback depth, particularly since Christian Gonzalez did not play in the joint practice. That's something to watch for as well on the defensive side of things. And one of the cool things that's kind of mentioned there is that this is the biggest night of Barron Morton's life. And for most players, they don't care about the preseason if you're a starter, if you're a key player. But there are guys out there that are fighting for their jobs, that this is the biggest night of their life, despite the fact that fans don't care. Media is just kind of there. And that's the cool part is what do we see from those guys? Is there some player that we don't even think about that has a big night? Yeah, and Chris, remember when Joe Milton played in the preseason for the Patriots, everyone thought he was the second coming. of Lamar Jackson, right? So you have these guys who come in in the preseason. They make these impressions and you think, oh my gosh, this guy is going to be a difference maker. We got to hold on to this guy. So this is where these guys really kind of make their name. I mean, Jill Milton.

made his name in the preseason for the Patriots, and of course, now he's with the Cowboys. So that's why these first preseason games are interesting to see these guys. Certainly we don't expect we'll make a difference at least this year in the regular season, but maybe down the road they could be a trade piece or, you know, a decent backup for the Patriots or someone else. So it's fun because these guys... you know, even though this game doesn't mean anything, for some of these guys. It means everything. It means everything. It's fun. It is fun. So I'm excited to see how that plays out. Mike, as always thank you so much. We're watching tonight at 7.30. All right, Chris, have a great night. That is Mike Cronin joining us on the HRC, your neighbor credit union guest sign. Patriots and the Cults preseason opener tonight on WMUR. I am Chris Ryan. This is New Hampshire today. I see you. I did. I bought it cheap online. Follow me. We'll turn off here. I'm right behind you. Watch the cars. They can be crazy. Teddy!

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