Patriots Notebook: No looking back

Training camp opens today for a team once again expected to contend for a Super Bowl title -- but a team that will look much the same as it did a year ago.

Most of the team's offseason movement, in fact, involved one major trade. It's by looking at that trade that we can see how this season's Patriots will differ most from last season's Patriots:

The Cassel part

The Patriots traded quarterback Matt Cassel to Kansas City. There is no position battle at quarterback. Tom Brady is the Patriots' starting quarterback now and forever. (Amen.)

But while the injury to Brady's knee threw a tremendous roadblock into the Patriots' quest for a playoff bid a year ago, it wasn't what ultimately doomed the team's chances. Cassel needed a couple of games to find a rhythm but had a quarterback rating of 100 or better in five of his final seven starts. Only once did he have a quarterback rating under 75 in the second half of the season -- and that came during the shellacking the Patriots received at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 13.

Even better, Cassel had a completion percentage of 55 percent or better in all but one of his starts -- the disaster against Pittsburgh -- and threw almost twice as many touchdown passes (21) as interceptions (11). For as much hand-wringing as Brady's injury precipitated, the Patriots did not miss the playoffs because of Cassel.

Should Brady go down again, The Great Matt Cassel Experiment has to be cause for optimism. A career backup emerged as a starting quarterback so capable that a team (a) dealt a second-round draft pick for him, and (b) signed him to a six-year contract including $28 million in guaranteed money.

There's no guarantee, should Brady go down, that Kevin O'Connell or Matt Gutierrez could do what Cassel did a year ago. Cassel, after all, had three years of experience in the Patriots' system, and Gutierrez and O'Connell have three years of experience combined. But the Patriots have demonstrated they can be a competitive football team even without Brady.

The Vrabel part

Mike Vrabel certainly was getting older, and Bill Belichick has always subscribed to the "A year too early is better than a year too late" theory. Vrabel had 67 tackles and four sacks a year ago and was on the field for almost 90 percent of the team's defensive snaps, but he also will turn 34 years old in August.

The Super Bowl-winning corps of linebackers now is almost gone -- Tedy Bruschi, now a part-time player, is the only linebacker who remains from the Patriots' last title team. (Tully Banta-Cain, a backup on two championships teams before leaving for San Francisco, signed a one-year contract with the Patriots in February.) The entire unit is undergoing significant overhaul -- and the rock on which it's being built is NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Jerod Mayo, he of the team-high 128 tackles a year ago.

Around him, though, questions still remain. Bruschi likely will open the season alongside Mayo in the middle, but he missed three games last season and just turned 36 years old. Things get even more murky on the outside, where Vince Redd and Pierre Woods are likely to compete for a starting job opposite Adalius Thomas.

Rookie Tyrone McKenzie, presumably drafted in the third round of April's NFL Draft as another building block, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during rookie camp in May and will not play this season.

The Chung part

The trade with K.C. was made for a second-round pick that turned into safety Patrick Chung.

What kept the Patriots out of the postseason a year ago wasn't Cassel. It was pass defense.

Belichick's secondary surrendered more passing touchdowns a year ago (27) than any team but the Arizona Cardinals and allowed more yards per pass attempt (7.3) than all but seven NFL teams. Deltha O'Neal was handed a pink slip, and Ellis Hobbs was dealt to the Philadelphia Eagles for a relative pittance on the second day of the NFL Draft.

The Patriots then signed free agents Leigh Bodden (61 tackles, 11 pass break-ups a year ago) and Shawn Springs (31 tackles, seven pass break-ups a year ago) while implicitly placing quite a bit of faith in second-year corners Terrence Wheatley and Jonathan Wilhite. They also drafted Chung, a hard-hitting safety with impressive versatility, and Hobbs clone Darius Butler to provide a shot of youth.

Brady is back.

Finding the right combination of defenders in the secondary to fit alongside Brandon Meriweather and James Sanders might just determine whether the Patriots get back to the Super Bowl or not.

Brian MacPherson covers the Patriots for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News.