The Patriots dropped their second preseason game of 2017, putting them at 0-2 for the first time in the exhibition season since the 2008 and 2007 preseasons, the only times during Bill Belichick’s entire tenure they’ve started out winless over the first two weeks.
Given that this is only preseason, the final outcomes obviously don’t matter since it’s more about evaluating individual players and trying to build a roster. Saturday night saw some starters back in the line-up, with Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Brandin Cooks, Julian Edelman among players who saw action. They held the edge against the Texans’ first team defense and played well, and then things began to drop off a bit from there and it became a back-and-forth effort that Houston eventually won as the Texans came away with the 27-23 victory.