The New England Patriots have some game tape to highlight what needs to be fixed over the coming days of practice. The Chicago Bears will be in town for three days of joint practice prior to Thursday’s game, so the Patriots had better be ready.
The offensive line clearly needs to improve their communication, while quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo needs to be better under pressure. The wide receivers need to get healthier and the defensive tackles need to be better at handling double teams against the run.
On the other side, running back Tyler Gaffney, tight end A.J. Derby, and edge defender Trey Flowers turned heads in their first games after spending 2015 on the injured reserve. The young cornerbacks Cyrus Jones, Justin Coleman, Darryl Roberts, Jonathan Jones, and Cre’Von LeBlanc all made positive plays.
There’s a lot to like and a lot to work on, but that’s why practices are so important.
“If a guy plays 15, 20 plays in the game then there's certainly something to look at there,” head coach Bill Belichick said on Friday. “But you know, we probably have 300 to 400 plays on that player through the course of just the training camp practices – forget about OTAs and all of that – just the training camp practices. I wouldn't say that we would weigh 20 plays over, let's say 300.”
And so all of these players that either did well or struggled on Thursday will have even more time to prove their value in the coming week.
Sunday, August 14th
2:30pm-4:45pm: Practice