Patriots Training Camp Updates with Gratuitous Cheerleader Pictures: Featuring Angela

A recap of the last few days of Patriots training camp:

*I went to the afternoon practice on Sunday. As many times as I've been, I can't shake this expectation that an NFL training camp is a non-stop, grueling, punishing, grind. That it's all coaches screaming at guys while they sweat and groan in the blistering heat such that if you set the coaches tape to a synth rock soundtrack you could make an '80s movie montage out of it. The truth is, Patriots camp looks a lot more like baseball spring training than any scene from "VisionQuest." They do work, but the emphasis is on X's and O's, and installing plays and not so much on drilling or conditioning, which I assume gets done in the gym.

*But not a second gets wasted. It's a model of efficiency. Like Archie Bunker said of Mussolini, "He was no bundle of laughs, but he made the trains run on time." That's Belichick. A clock ticks down every segment of practice and when it gets to 0:00, an airhorn sounds and everyone moves on to the next thing. And zero time is spent explaining to the team what that next part of practice or the next thing they're working on is; they just know. It's like they've practiced their practice.

*They began working on kickoffs and returns for 12 minutes. Airhorn. They moved on to QBs and receivers going through their route trees for 7 minutes. Horn. Then it was on to the far field for light sprints and warm ups for 15 minutes, which was oddly accompanied by Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen. If that was for the 80's montage effect, it didn't exactly pull it off, since the players weren't doing much more than stretching their hammys. The closest thing to any real "Junction Boys" style training camping was the lineman working on hand techinques with a heavy bag while back and receivers did agility drills sidestepping over pylons. But even that was only slightly more exerting than the old pitchers-covering-first drill.

*The most remarkable sight was watching Brady, Matt Guittierez and Kevin O'Connell working on 3-step drop throws (Matt Cassel was working with the WRs). Here's Brady, the apex of the celebrity-athlete pyramid, taking turns with a 3rd round rookie and an undrafted scrubini like he was one of them. And to be honest, there wasn't a major difference in their techniques. If anything, Brady's spiral wasn't as tight as the other two.

*The only indication you had that Brady was a bigger deal than them was that while waiting for his turn in the rotation, he impregnated three women in the crowd. It would've been more, but the fourth one was wearing a red "no contact" jersey.

*It's obvious that a team-wide point of emphasis is defending against RBs coming out of the backfield and catching balls underneath. The Pats were burned repeatedly by it last year as teams exploited soft spots in their base Cover-2 defense and relatively slowish ILBs. They ran one drill with Brady throwing to a RB with one LB in coverage. The LBs were working on "walling off" the RB, bumping him as he comes across the middle to prevent a free release into the flat. As you can imagine in 1-on-1, the offense has a huge advantage, but there was still some good coverage shown. Tedy Bruschi, who struggled in coverage some last year looked good. As did Gary Guyton, who is starting to emerge as a camp sleeper; this year's Randall Gay. Victor Hobson looked slow, but Jerod Mayo looked agile and quick. Though early on, Laurence Maroney put a move on him that had Mayo crumbling to the ground like the T1000 in the puddle of liquid nitrogen.

*The emphasis on pass-covering RBs explains the Tank Williams at ILB experiment. I didn't catch much of Williams on Sunday, but according to reports he's struggled there against the run and taking on blocks from Guards. Last week, Maroney reportedly pushed him back 10 yards. But the walling off technique was something they kept working on in 11-on-11, employing the technique against slot receivers where the ILB is expected to create contact, then trail the receiver to take away the passing slot. This is particularly something to look for out of Mayo, who by all accounts has done his homework, is quickly picking up the defensive schemes and has the wheels to keep tight coverage on the wideouts upfield.

*The highlight of practice was the one gadget play they ran. The offense was doing situational work for the whole last half of practice. Brady threw ten yards upfield to (I think) Wes Welker, who hook & laddered it to Moss. Moss then shoveled it to Brady, who threw it back across field to Kevin Faulk who picked up 30 or so yards in the open field. It was like the Music City Miracle except it didn't count, and Foxboro isn't known for its music so much as for its U-Store-It facilities.

*Three seasons into the Matt Cassell experiment and we still have no idea if he can get it done if needed. I do know this: in practice he misses with a lot of passes. By contrast, Brady almost never does. On one RB route, he missed Faulk badly on a deep route, and Faulk's hand went up immediately to indicate he should've been where the ball ended up, which was everyone's assumption anyway. On another deep slant to Moss he threaded the ball between (I think) Antwain Spann and Lewis Sanders and Moss did that thing where he isn't looking, the ball is coming at him like an assassin's bullet, but he turns at the last second and snares it.

*In spite of his reputation, Belichick never raises his voice. We heard him twice: Once was during situational, end-of-the-half drills, when he shouted "One second!" indicating the offense had to go for a Hail Mary, and at the end of practice when he lined the defense across the field in 3-point stances with the offense 10 yards behind. They all had to go on the whistle, sprint 10 yards, then get back in a stance. After three repeats, instead of blowing the whistle, he yelled "Go!" and if anyone jumped, they had to go back 10 yards and do it again. At one point Heath Evans (I think) was the only one who screwed up this particular game of Simon Says (to the delight of the crowd), but the whole squad had to go back and do it again. Like I said, the world might think Belichick is a ball buster, but "One second!" and "Go!" are not exactly the stuff of R. Lee Ermey.

*The Pats practice field is only 90 yards long. There's only one 40 yard line. Maybe they only need one. But didn't Eli Manning complete that pass to David Tyree from around the 40? I'm just sayin'.

*A lot of observers have been impressed with the young CBs, Wheatley and Wilhite. They've (like Mayo) have gotten significant reps with the first defense, and we might be looking at significant playing time for them, like we saw with Eugene Wilson and Assante Samuel their rookie years.
*But not so much with Chad Jackson, who fields punts a DH who's been stuck in the outfield for a game. And some say he doesn't look like he's picked up the offense, though Belichick has gone out of his way to praise him, so who knows?

*One thing the Pats had going for them last year was continuity on the O-line. Save for a few games Stephen Neal was hurt, they rolled the same line out every game, but this year not so much. Some of it might be the coaches resting the veterans, but we've seen an awful lot of the veteran backups/ career special teamers like Wesley Britt and Billy Yates. And Logan Mankins has been practicing snaps. Until guys get healthy, we can expect them to keep up the stream of Oliver Ross type signings.

*Piolichick clearly wanted to get younger and taller at LB as there are some tall drinks of water in camp. Crable looks ginormous. And Vince Redd and Bo Ruud signed my son's football, and even though I was up in the bleachers I was looking up at them like they were standing on milk crates.

*The crowd singing "Happy Birthday" to Brady was the gheyest thing I've ever witnessed. Until the end of practice when Belichick was leaving the field by himself, we cheered, he waved back, and I swooned like a girl seeing the Jonas Bros. Band at the Teen Choice Awards. That was way gheyer.