Letters From Patriots Camp: Volume 2

So far this week has brought us the first two padded practices of the Jerod Mayo Era. Which gets us one baby step closer to actual football. If we talk about Week 1 of the regular season as firing live bullets for the first time, then preseason is wargaming with blanks. Scrimmages during inter-squad practices would be historic battlefield reenactments. And padded practices are sort of playing army in the backyard using toy guns. But since with this metaphor, non-padded practices are pointing your finger at each other and making Pew! Pew! sounds, it's still a big upgrade. And I'm here so you don't have to be. 

--The most significant change from Monday:

 ... was that Matthew Judon was nowhere to be seen. We still don't know if Jerod Mayo is the Babylonian deity Marduk who's going to bring balance between the tyranny of the old regime and the chaos of letting players run the show here. But we can at least infer that he told Judon that if he's not coming here to work and play nice with others, not to bother to show up at all. And assume Judon was only too happy to oblige. It's a lousy situation all around. Judon has every right to expect he'd be taken care of given how Eliot Wolf has been handing out extensions like they were Fun Size Snickers on October 31st. The team no doubt wants him at their price, given he'll be 32 in two weeks, which is often the age pass rushers head south to Del Boca Vista. And with him no-showing at practice, it's hard to imagine this ending in anything but a breakup. 

--On a related note, Davon Godchaux, who's also looking for a new deal, has shown up throughout. In fact, yesterday he brought his Saul Goodman with him:

On a note related to that, Christian Barmore was diagnosed with blood clots. Possibly the same condition that cost David Andrews his entire 2019 season:

Meaning that there's a very real possibility the defensive front-7, which had every expectation of being the strength of the team, might be without its two best players for the entire season. Making it all the more important they work something out with Rosenhaus if the plan is to field a competitive team. 

--On yet another note related to that, one adjustment the coaches toyed with today was to put Keion White on the edge in a 2-point stance. One of the better selling points when they drafted White last year was his position versatility and how he'd played all along the line of scrimmage at Georgia Tech. But he ended up playing 280 of his 513 defensive snaps between the tackles. Assuming they can extend Godchaux and Barmore isn't out for the season, you can easily see White going full time into an Edge rotation with Josh Uche and Deatrich Wise, Jr. Or, we might simply be fucked. After winning four games in a season where I was expecting 10, I haven't ruled that out. Or anything, for that matter.

--All this and we're only a week into camp. It's hard not to watch Mayo having to face this reality for the first time and not think of how, as we speak, Belichick is taking his girlfriend on a bike ride to an ice cream stand without a care in the world. 

--Anyhoo, rather than bury the lede any further than I already have, there's not a man, woman or child who's been to camp so far (and the crowd today was massive for a Tuesday, and louder than last Thursday's by an order of magnitude) who watches the scrimmage portion of these practices and wonders who the QB1 is. This is, for all intents and purposes and for the foreseeable future, Jacoby Brissett's team. I don't envy CBS trying to hype one of the very many Sunday at 1:00 games to come with, "Jacoby Brissett and the New England Patriots take on …" like he's "Lebron James and the Lakers" or "Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band," but he's the Hootie to these Blowfish until further notice. That was especially clear after the two padded practices. Since I lack the math skills to keep track of anyone's passing numbers, I'll steal off the paper of someone smart who can:

Believe me, I'm not worried about Drake Maye. Nor should you be. This isn't Mac Jones regressing under Matt Patricia and Bill O'Brien. This is an entire team undergoing a fundamental change in how it's operated. New system. New playbook. Different nomenclature, reads, calls, blocking assignments, progressions, routes. I look at this the way I did the aliens teaching the five tones in Close Encounters. 

It's a whole new language that is going to take time. On a planetary scale. Which fortunately, this team has. And so does Maye. He has yet to get to Devil's Tower, but will make it onto the Mothership at some point in the near future. Until then, we've got Brissett to do all the talking for us. 

--On a more positive note, this young receiver group has already given a fanbase that's gotten used to seeing wideouts crash and burn legitimate reasons to hope. Whether it was Kayshon Boutte from Maye:

Or Tyquan Thornton - who could very well be fighting for a roster spot after two terribly disappoint years anyone with such a proud name - from Brissett:

And even the rookies. Javon Baker from Brissett:

And most of all, Ja'Lynn Polk, who seems to be open all the time. Even when he's not. Like this one from Maye that he hauled in today:

If this team finishes with a garbage record, but manages to establish a young, talented group of receivers as legitimate threats for 2025, that'll be enough to consider this year a success. As pathetic as that may sound. 

--For all that, I came here for the pads, and it is the pads which drew my attention. A team still shuffling the deck along its offensive line needs all these practices it can get. In keeping with tradition, they brought the guys who man the trenches down to the far end of the field. First so they can get work done. And second, so all the moms and kids in the Brady jerseys and footballs for autographing can get a good view of all the throws and catches. But my focus was on the fat guys. 

--For starters (literally), for today's session they seemed to have flipped the starting tackles from last week, with Chukwuma Okorafor on the right next to Michael Onwenu, and Calvin Anderson on the left outside of Sidy Sow. But in no way was this the kind of padded practice the way you picture it. With pit drills and Oklahomas and guys crashing into each other before circling to the back of the line to do it again. For the most part, this was more instructional. The dull but necessary kind of work that used to make the kids I coached bored so they'd start nutpunching each other. These were walking speed drills built around learning how to read two-man interior blitzes, stunts and games and the like, but at a walking speed. A lot of outside zone runs, with pin-pull blocks and guards chipping on combo blocks before bouncing up to the next level. 

--Granted there was some contact:

In pass rush drills, Uche got stood up by Anderson, then came back a couple of reps later and beat Okorafor. 

Then Wise got inside of Okorafor for what would've been a pressure, at least. Backup center Charles Turner fought Sam Roberts to a standstill.  And … wait. Did I lose you? Sorry. I got lost in my own minutiae for a minute there. And I guess I don't have the writing skills to paint a word picture that truly captures the excitement of an offensive line walk through done at 1/4 speed. But it was breathtaking for those of us fortunate enough to witness it through binoculars from 150 yards away. 

--Getting back to the offense as a whole, they are still (and let me know if this sounds familiar after five straight camps of hearing it) way behind the defense. Hopefully that's a product of the new system we've already discussed ad nauseum. But beyond those deep shots I've already shown you, the passes are overwhelmingly low risk throws to the flats, shallow crossers or checkdowns. The outside zones that are the foundation of everything Alex Van Pelt will try to do have for the most part gone nowhere. Today they got in some red zone work for the first time, and even still the passes were all to the outside, with not one shot into the end zone. In fact, unofficially the offense hasn't scored a single touchdown in seven practices. The Belichick approach was to run almost exclusively red zone for the first week of camp, which turned those early days of camp into a wild frenzy of celebrations and shit talk coming from both sides. Later in today's practice the defense was getting into it after a few toss plays got stuffed for no gain. But for the most part, it still has that first week of first grade feel to it. Like everyone still trying to figure out the basics, look like they know what they're doing, and try not to come off like they've got cooties. 

--So far to me, the sneaky best player no one is talking about is CB Alex Austin, who had yet another pass broken up on a well thrown ball. And who just seems to have that sort of JC Jackson energy of always being around the ball. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he ends up being the third corner after Christian Gonzalez and Jonathan Jones. But there's a ways to go there.

--Musically they switched it up from straight Hip Hop to Geezer Rock that included, thanks to whichever player got to bring his "Jock Jams Vol . 2" CD, Queen's "We Will Rock You." Thus gaining in crowd reaction whatever he lost in originality. As a bonus, we did get to hear Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal." But I couldn't confirm if that was in honor of Boutte beating the rap on his gambling charges in Louisiana. 

--In all, practice went over two hours, with the entire team running sideline-to-sideline gassers at the end. Let that be a lesson to the next guy who chooses to get up in Mayo's face over his contract.