By Tom E. Curran
CSNNE.com Patriots InsiderFollow @tomecurran
DETROIT -- Waiting in the Detroit airport for a flight that will bring me to Washington D.C. Wondering if I'll get to Providence before the kids start school. Let's see how this little idea works. There were plenty of things to weigh in on. So let's do 'em all. Two lines each. 1. Sebastian Vollmer's never looked worse than he did Saturday night. The right tackle set a personal high for flailing misses and lost leverage. 2. A power outage at Gillette Stadium pre-empted Bill Belichick's "Uhhhh-a-thon" Sunday afternoon (aka his day after conference call). Seconds of awkward silence would have outnumbered words uttered anyway. 3. Dan Connolly left the locker room Saturday night with a compression wrap on his lower right leg. It was black. 4. Bad as Vollmer was, once Rich Ohrnberger came in to replace Connolly at right guard, it somehow got worse. He looked like a 4-year-old watching traffic pass while Lions blasted through him. 5. I don't care that Logan Mankins does dirty nasty stuff before the whistle that leads to stuff after the whistle. Good teams need players who play at the edge and sometimes go over it. 6. Same goes for Ndamukong Suh. He can be as dirty as he wants to be as far as I'm concerned in this emasculated NFL. 7. I'll need to get a look at the tape, but it seemed like Matt Light held up well at left tackle. The relative slenderness of Nate Solder was used against him during the bull rush that resulted in Tom Brady's pick as he got driven and discarded. 8. Aaron Hernandez is a remarkable weapon. Two or three times a game, he gets in an utter mismatch with room to run and just does stuff I don't think I've ever seen a tight end do for the Patriots. 9. Gronk need touches. Gronk need touches. 10. I'm all set with Brandon Tate. He's got no return imagination and he's not going to be better than Taylor Price or Julian Edelman. 11. When Edelman has the ball in his hands, positive things happen. Bill O'Brien has to make that happen. 12. To put it plainly, Chad Ochocinco's sucked this preseason.Yet because theguy has works his ass off, shows up every single day ready togo and is as disappointed in himself as everyone who wanted an Ocho explosion on arrival, I'm cutting him slack. 13. When Kevin Faulk was the Patriots' full-time third-down back he was so often the one guy who could shift momentum with a something-out-of-nothing play. Danny Woodhead has the same knack. 14. Even as the Patriots were befuddled up front in the first quarter and Tom Brady was under attack, they still managed to convert four consecutive third downs. That speaks to the number of weapons and diversity of the offense. 15. Deion Branch has quietly gone catchless so far this preseason. I think that's redundant. 16. After a breakout first game against the Jaguars second and third-teamers, it was important for Taylor Price to follow that performance up against starters. He was unable to get in the groove Saturday night either. 17. Unless things radically change, Will Yeatman - aptly described by the Globe's Shalise Manza-Young as looking like an investment banker - is going to make the club as an undrafted free agent at tight end. Lee Smith, a fifth-rounder from Marshall, may find himself released with the Patriots hoping they can get him through to their practice squad. 18. Gerard Warren needs to make this football team. He's HaynesworthEllis insurance, plays extremely hard and is a locker room Yoda. 19. The number of defensive miscommunications on Saturday night was disturbing. The amount of on-field finger-pointing and gesturing after the miscommunications was unseemly.20. Mike Reiss at ESPNBoston.com always does an outstanding job charting personnel all game long. He points out that the three players on four different special teams units Saturday night were Tracy White, James Ihedigbo and Sammy Morris, all on the kickoff and punt coverage and return teams. 21. Edelman left in the second half to get checked out by trainers. Not sure what the issue was but he said he was fine in the hallway after the game. 22. Somehow, someway Darius Butler finds a way to get beaten in a prominent fashion every game. Saturday night it was on a fourth-down, fourth-quarter touchdown pass. 23. Devin McCourty had passes completed on him Saturday night that were uncommon. For the most part, his coverage was there and the throws by Matthew Stafford or the catch by Calvin Johnson beat the coverage. 24. Center Andre Gurode appears to be on the outs in Dallas. Couldn't you just see Belichick signing him?Tom E. Curran can be reached at tcurran@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Tom on Twitter at http:twitter.comtomecurran