The New England Patriots dropped their preseason opener 22-11 to the Green Bay Packers, tonight.

Though the Pats got doubled up by the Packers, things could have gone worse.

When looking at the first half, New England looked rather good. The starting defense bent a bit too much but managed not to break and made some impressive fourth down stops, while Jonas Gray and Stephen Gostkowski starred in the other two facets of the game.

To get a more complete look at the first half, click here.

The second half started out rough for backup Jimmy Garoppolo, who also struggled through the second quarter after coming on to relieve Tom Brady, as he threw a quick interception out of the gate. From there, though, Garoppolo seemed to settle in a bit.

After completing just three of his first eight pass attempts on the evening, the second year quarterback settled down and finished up 20-30 for 159 yards and the one pick. He also had a stretch where he completed nine consecutive passes in the third quarter.

While Garoppolo's performance was not the most promising effort ever seen, he shouldn't take all the heat. He had few solid options to target at the receiver position tonight and didn't get a lot of opportunities to look for guys to get open as the makeshift offensive line employed by the Pats was not very strong.

In total, the Packers defense sacked Garoppolo seven times for a loss of 52 yards. Those sacks can largely be attributed to a poor effort by the line.

As for the New England defense, the second and third units did not seem to bring the same unbreakable attitude of the first unit to the game as they gave up two second half touchdowns and would have probably gave up a third if the Packers did not run out of time at the end of the game.

All in all, there were some positives and negatives for New England tonight and there will surely be plenty of opportunities for Bill Belichick and the rest of the Pats' coaching staff to help improve this team.

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