Tonight, the New England Patriots will host the Carolina Panthers at Gillette Stadium for what will be the team’s third game of this preseason. The importance of exhibition contest number three is of course well known: it is widely dubbed the ‘dress rehearsal’ for the regular season, because a team’s starters will see considerable playing time while the pre-game process closely resembles that of a normal week during the year.
This also means that we will get our best impression to date of the 2019 Patriots and how the team’s roster and position battles stand nine days away from cutdown day.