WR depth thin; Trey Flowers ready for Week 1 TEAM TALKGame Preview: Patriots at Giants. Series history Youth Dont'a Hightower Jersey , tale of the tape, memorable matchups.Patriots announced that they have signed three players: RB Kenneth Farrow, WR K.J. Maye and RB Khalfani Muhammad.Andy Hart reports the Patriots signed Shaq Mason to $50 million extension.Erik Scalavino shares some practice notes and locker-room buzz from Monday at Gillette: Sony Michel, Marcus Cannon at practice.Paul Perillo talks about how Cyrus Jones seems to be finding his footing, as he begins his third year with the Patriots.Paul Perillo posts PFW’s late-season 53-man roster projection. Riley McCarron makes it.Press Conference: Bill Belichick (12.47 min. video)WEEI Patriots Monday: Tom Brady - James White - Bill Belichick.LOCAL LINKSMatt Dolloff spotlights 16 players with something to prove this Thursday night.Mark Daniels reports Shaq Mason could’ve waited, hit the open market and cashed in with the highest bidder. Instead, he knew Foxboro was the place he wanted to be so he cashed in with the Patriots.Kevin Duffy hears from Shaq Mason on the state of the O-line after his extension, “Those are my guys. We all feed off each other, make each other better. We all go out every day and put our best foot forward.” /Did he steal that from Welker?Andrew Callahan tellsus the Patriots offensive line is well positioned for years to come.Mike Reiss points out the unusually thin level of WR depth while projecting the 53-man roster and thinks the Patriots almost have to make a move at the position.Mike Reiss thumbnails some wide receivers the Patriots could possibly target.Karen Guregian pitches in with her own search around the league for potential wide receiver targets.Henry McKenna (PatriotsWire) Six wide receivers the Patriots could target to bolster thinning group.Michael Hurley points out three plays from Tom Brady that should help ease concerns about the weak spot at receiver.Doug Kyed tells us what the Patriots offense could look like in the first four weeks of the season.Devon Clements (PatriotsWire) Phillip Dorsett seems to be breaking out just in time.Adam London wonders if the Patriots should consider this hypothetical trade for Golden Tate.Matt Dolloff finds Trey Flowers is not worried about his contract, despite an apparent lack of progress.Ross Gienieczko observes Trey Flowers is already playing the role of knowledgeable veteran with just three years of experience under his belt, and he has the resume to back up that status.Ryan Hannable says it’s been a slow summer for Trey Flowers, but adds it seems like Flowers does expect to be on the field Week 1 against the Texans.Mark Farinella profiles journeyman offensive lineman Ulrich John, in the mix for a depth spot on the roster.CBS Boston highlights Bill Belichick addressing Eric Decker’s retirement, the Patriots receiving depth and more.Nicole Yang relays former Michigan QB Brian Griese’s impressions of young Tom Brady. “All of us in the locker room thought he was a going to be this surfer dude.”Andrew Lykins (BostonSportsExtra) Robert Kraft should be in Canton. /I agree.Ian Logue (PatsFans) Patriots Notebook: Patterson leading in key stat; Ninkovich makes case to ditch turf.Michael Hurley reviews new book, (Mark Leibovich “Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times,”) that provides a behind-the-curtain look at the inner workings of the NFL. 1. Roger Goodell is not a popular man.Robert Alvarez (PatsFans) Fitzy presents “Brady Sunday”(2.20 min. video) Ryan Hannable is immensely relieved that Bill Belichick ‘finally’ addressed Alex Guerrero’s role with the team. /Already known he wasn’t part of the organization.Dave Brown serves up some big answers to the most important Alex Guerrero questions. /as always, with a generous side of snark.Tom E. Curran explains that in the last few tumultuous years, Tom Brady realized being nice, accommodating, committed and diligent off the field had gotten him . . . what? So now, he’s doing things his way.Jerry Thornton (BarstoolSports) Tom Brady hangs up on WEEI again. /Forgot about the Globe accusing Brady of stealing from Best Buddies.NATIONAL NEWSDarin Gantt (ProFootballTalk) Sony Michel back on the practice field.Michael David Smith (ProFootballTalk) Tom Brady on receivers: Certain things haven’t worked out.Conor Orr (SI) Ten people, places and things that will define the NFL in 2018. 8. Patriot drama. “Have all the wounds created over the past decade healed, or was the departure of Belichick loyalist Matt Patricia a sign of things to come?” /Oh puh-leeeze.Danny Kelly (The Ringer) Predicting the NFL’s passing, receiving, and rushing leaders in 2018. Passing leader: Phillip Rivers. /?Danny Heifetz (The Ringer) The Chargers are an AFC competitor hiding in plain sight. /Can’t talk Chargers history http://www.thepatriotsfootballauthentic.com/patrick-chung-jersey-authentic , without the Pats (heh heh).Josh Alper (ProFootballTalk) Shaq Mason lands five-year extension in New England.Charean Williams (ProFootballTalk) Patriots sign Kenneth Farrow, K.J. Maye, Khalfani Muhammad.Judy Battista (NFL.com) Nine reasons to hope or worry from NFL preseason action.Gregg Rosenthal (NFL.com) Preseason Week 3 winners/losers: Phillip Dorsett in the ‘Going Up’ column.Bucky Brooks (NFL.com) AFC Preseason Week 3 grades. Patriots B+.Mike Florio (ProFootballTalk) No solution yet in the anthem policy negotiations.Michael David Smith (ProFootballTalk) NFLPA representatives, owners meeting today to discuss anthem issues.Jay Rigdon (Awful Announcing) Tom Brady hangs up on WEEI interview rather than talk about Alex Guerrero. “All Brady had to do there was confirm the obvious report and say he wasn’t going to expand on it, and that would likely have been that.” /Except, ”that” never would have been that.The Patriots pass rush appears to be much improved Let’s just get this out of the way before the BAMA AIN’T PLAYED NOBODY crowd jumps in:Here is the current offensive line of the Houston Texans.Martinas Rankin (OT)*Juli茅n Davenport (OT)Nick Martin (C)Zach Fulton (G)Senio Kelemete (G)*replaced right tackle Sentreal Henderson in the second quarter after Henderson suffered a broken ankle and they shuffled some tackles around so eventually two tackles were playing tackle. Whatever. Some teams are into that.I swear that those are all real, live NFL offensive linemen and none of those names are from the Key and Peele college football sketches.That being said, if you were finally catching your second wind (or first wind, for that matter) after staying out too late on Saturday night right around game time on Sunday, you may have thought to yourself at one point or another during the game when Texans QB Deshaun Watson was having an “Oh, FML” moment as he got swarmed by blue jerseys, “Man, it looks like the Patriots are getting pressure, like, every other time he goes back to pass!”Your day drinking self would be correct!Pass rush pressure, you say? It’s so...beautiful!Seeing that kind of pressure again as a Patriots fan must be what those people doing Whole 30 or whatever feel like when it’s finally over and someone puts a half pound burger and a plate full of fries in front of you. It’s just the way life was meant to be lived.Now, as our fearless leader Rich Hill pointed out yesterday, the run defense is...well, so far...not great. Part of that is the D-line personnel that the Patriots were putting on the field expecting the Texans to abandon the run after going down 18 points, and then the Texans kept pounding the rock for 7 of 10 snaps against a smaller New England line, so, all strategery aside, that’s going to happen when teams keep pounding the rock without more Pats run-stuffers in the game.Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the pass rush some more!What should make this a big F’ing deal for a Patriots pass rush that couldn’t buy a sack if they had an American Express Black Card in the Super Bowl is that it’s not like they were just beating up on one overmatched offensive lineman, like *some* people criticized Adrian Clayborn for in his six-sack game against Dallas last season. The Patriots were bringing the rush from all areas of the field and against all those Texans offensive linemen we mentioned earlier.(Side note re: Adrian Clayborn’s sack totals from last season being “inflated” because of that one Dallas game: beating up on bad offensive linemen is what you’re SUPPOSED to do)Check out where the heat was coming from http://www.thepatriotsfootballauthentic.com/marcus-cannon-jersey-authentic , courtesy of CLNS’s Evan Lazar’s advanced stats:Trey Flowers: 7 total pressures - 4 hurries, 1 QB hit, 2 sacksDeatrich Wise: 4 total pressures - 2 hurries, 2 sacksKeionta Davis: 3 total pressures - 2 hurries, 1 QB hitAdrian Clayborn: 3 total pressures - 3 hurriesKyle Van Noy: 3 total pressures - 3 hurriesMalcom Brown - 3 total pressures - 2 hurries, 1 QB hitLawrence Guy - 2 total pressures - 1 hurry, 1 QB hitDanny Shelton, Dont’a Hightower, and Pat Chung also all chipped in with one quarterback pressure apiece. Not too bad for a defense that normally gets shredded at least once before most people are thinking about their Halloween costume!Everyone on defense joining the pressure party is one way to look at it, anyway. The optimist in every Pats fan will see that and say that at least most of the guys here can bring the heat in the right situations; since nobody in New England is an optimist for more than 5 minutes, though, the flipside is that outside of Trey Flowers, nobody really dominated their matchups here, at least not in a Khalil Mack playing tether-ball with the Packers kind of way.And that’s OK! After the Patriots did their usual “Is that your mock draft? That’s cute” and didn’t take a defensive player with either of their two first-round picks, or their second-round pick, and actually didn’t take a D-tackle or defensive end in the draft at all, saying this defensive line wasn’t scaring anybody over the summer would’ve been an understatement. Sure, there were some good flashes in the preseason, like Keionta Davis’s patience finally paying off with his first NFL sack, but that’s preseason, right? Wait till the real football starts, right?So far, real football is a whole lot more fun when your defense is the ones DOING the barbecuing and not getting barbeCUED by Alex Smith in week 1.Especially when Deatrich Wise is just making up his sack celebrations like going bowling as he goes along. Imagine what will be coming out of this man’s imagination after the bye week.