This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan Lazar and Alex Barth.
And Lazarre. Hello, everybody nailed it? Joined us always by our bark. Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars eighty eight to forty one? Was that one on a napkin?
I was about but then he threw back to me too quickly the other one And and by the way, shout out.
To whoever put in the chatay rowling, shout out to what Hello everybody, and welcome into a new edition of the Patriots Cast twenty two podcasts here on Patriots dot Com. Evan Lazar joined us always by Alex Barth. Even though we're not we're not live live okay, So don't don't call in, don't email in, don't don't blow up the phones for morell because there's nobody to speak to on
the air. So just putting that out there again. This is like one of those things where we need to like have a written disclaimer at the top too, right, like this isn't live okay, uh so don't don't get lost. But the idea behind this show and Alex and I were trying to think of a way to do something that's that is what we call in the biz evergreen, right, you don't have to worry about breaking news or something
like that, making it uh not relevant anymore. So we thought what a great idea would be is to break down how Alex and I watch training camp practices, what our routines are, what are what things we're looking for out on the football field during practice, so that when you guys hopefully come get an opportunity to come down to Patriots training camp here at Gillette, you can watch it. I hate to call us pros, but media pros, not saying football how the nerds. That's a better way of
putting it. How the nerds watch it. That that's the goal here. We're also gonna have some fun with it. We'll give you a couple of little tricks of the trade to make sure that you have a good day. One one is particularly important that I'll get to you in a second. And also some of our favorite lunch spots, because usually practices around ten and it gets out around noon twelve thirty. If you stay for autographs after practice, and it's perfect opportunity to go to Patriot Place or
some of the nearby spots to grab lunch afterwards. If you're coming with your family for come with your kids, it's great. But let's start with the football side of it. So I have a couple of things, a couple things I want to talk about. Then we'll get into like the nitty gritty of how we watch practice. So I think one of the biggest things that I can can't stress enough, and I think sometimes we I'm going to couple lumpus all in so I'm not calling out anybody individually.
We kind of give off the impression that we see everything at a training camp practice. And I'm here to tell you that anybody that says that they saw everything that happened at a training camp practice is lying. Yes, it's impossible to see everything. It's two fields. They're on a two field. It's ninety guys, it's two hundred yards of football field, right Like, there's no way you're going to see everything. Don't come to camp, and don't be demoralized.
If you do come to camp and you feel like you miss stuff, it's it's tough.
Like you're watching on one field and hear a big cheer all of a sudden because something happened on the other field that happens. It happens to all of.
Us, and that's that's a big thing because we get lucky and that we cover the team and so we get to come every single day. So if I didn't really watch the defensive line much on Monday, I can come back and Tuesday can be the defensive line day. And that's sort of how I go approaching it.
Sometimes the other thing is like a lot of us, you know, we're not the only one from our outland, right, So, like I work with Matt dolofense, so we'll be like, all right, I'm gonna watch the you know, if it's the ones on offense and the ones on defense or a different field, I'm gonna watch the offense, you watch the defense, or I'm gonna watch this I'm gonna watch this player, you watch this player.
Yeah, So what we do with Deuce and I, I'm usually more the offense guy, and he's usually more because he's more interested in the defense. I'm more interested in offense, so he'll watch defense a lot of the time. I'll watch offense, or like during O line and D line one on one, sometimes the be doing cornerback and receiver one on one. So we'll split it up. And that's something that I think is an advantage of us covering the outlet, you know, covering for outlets that have multiple
people to be able to watch practice. So don't be demoralized, don't think, don't get your hopes up that you're gonna see everything and then come and feel like, ah, dang, like I miss so much. That's that's gonna happen. The second little thing that I have here is I'm a big scheme guy. All you guys know that I'm a big x's and O is play design all that kind of stuff. In reality, camp is more about players than plays.
They're running a lot of their base formations, a lot of their base concepts in terms of the actual drawing out of the plays right, the play design, all of it is pretty much rudimentary stuff to an NFL team. We're not getting into game planning, they're not getting into exotic blitzes, they're not getting into all these crazy you know, double passes and all that kind of stuff. So what you're really going out there to do is focus on
who looks good, what players popping. You know, when when Christian Gonzales goes up against DeVante Parker and Uh and Juju and some of the top receivers on the team, or when we get into joint practices. You might not be there, but if you live in Nashville, in or in the Green Bay area, you can come. It's there open to the public. You can come when Juju or excuse me, Christian Gonzales goes up against Christian Watson at Lambeau, right, like, that's gonna be a big matchup. So it's more about
players than plays. The other last thing and this one's more tongue in cheek, but I gotta say it. Bring binoculars, binoculars. I don't know can people people can bring binoculars. I think so. If not, don't bring binoculars, but I think they can. Now, this is real. This is the real, And I know it's it's sort of a joke, but it's I cannot stress this point enough. You absolutely positively
need to come to training camp with sunscreen. If you don't come with sunscreen or properly apply sunscreen before coming to training camp, you will look like a red lobster by the end of the day. Every single beat writer under the sun, myself, Alex, we have all out how many times have one of us gotten toasted out at trading camp. It happens every year. It happens even if you apply sunscreen. Sometimes there's not a lot of shade,
there's not a lot of cover from the sun. You are gonna get your that sun's gonna come beaten down on you. And the one thing you'll say about camp, uh, I love camp. It's my favorite time of the year. We get to watch practice. As you know as two football nerds, this is this is it. This is the best part of covering the team. But it's hot, it's sticky, it's humid. It's New England in August and it's and it's sunny and you're gonna get burnt if you don't
wear sunscreen. People and you can being binocular.
So definitely bring binoculars because that's.
That's that whenever somebody starts out anew on the beat, if they if they say that and reaches out to me and asks me for for tips for training camp, binoculars is my number one thing.
So I in terms of items to bring sunscreen, yes, binoculars, yes it unless you're gonna get there really early and you're gonna end up on the bleachers. Bring like a blanket or something to sit on the on the hill, which I think is better. Or if it's one of those days where it's overflow and you can get up on the ramps. That's my favorite spots. Yeah, I love it, So we do the shows from up on the ramps. I'm spoiled being up there as I miss going up there.
And then the other thing, make sure your phone's charged because you're gonna want to look up, oh, who's this player? And they'll give you a roster and like have your roster ready too, but you're gonna want to look up where'd they get this play? Where did this guy come from? What did this guy do last year? Right? You know, there's a lot of new players, and for you know, for us, it feels a little less new. I kind of remind myself about this one because this is what
I was doing all spring. I'm on my phone, like because you know, we as the guys come in, we learn about them. But then you get there and you're like, oh, wow, they're playing this guy here. How much did he play there last year? I want to look this up and that up. So charge definitely, you want a charged phone, absolutely.
All right, So what what tip do we have in terms of like actually viewing live play.
So the best advice I ever got on this when I covered you know, we went to college and I covered the team there and the coaches were we got to watch every day like all season, all the practices, and the coaches were super awesome about helping me learn the game. And I think the best advice I got from them is if you really want to know what's important, because it's hard to say, like, Okay, just watch this at practice because different days are all about different things.
Watch what the coaches are watching. So look at Bill, look at Girod, look at Bill O'Brien, look at Steve right where are their eyes? Yeah, and then go where their eyes are because those are the guys that are making the decisions. Those are the guys that are going to build a team, Those are the guys that are going to come up with the game plans. So if you want to try to like get ahead of it and really learn what they're thinking, you've got to watch
what they're watching. And now they have the luxury if they go back and they watch film of the whole day and they'll see everything. But what are they looking for what are they looking for, See where they're looking, and then look at that because odds are that's probably pretty important. And it's all sorry to add another it. Sometimes you see, like if Bill's working one on one with a player, you might notice, right, this is a couple of times he's pulled this guy as side and
he talked to him, Or Bill O'Brien, same thing. He's pulled the same receiver aside three or four times and talked to him. Clearly there's an interest in that player more so than just the base level. So honestly, look at the coaches and look at what they're looking at. That's generally where my eyes go.
Yeah, it's a great point. And I think one of the coolest things that you hear about about coach Belichick is he he's the exception to my number one thing when we started this of you can't see everything. Somehow Bill sees pretty much everything. Like he has that ability to watch an eleven on eleven sequence with and he can correct all twenty two guys. It's incredible. Yeah, I've never seen anything like it. We are not that gifted, right, So when I watch camp again, it kind of goes
back to what we were saying earlier. I tend to try to focus on like one area of the field. Yeah, And I try to narrow my scope because things, especially when they get into team drills, it's too fast, and I don't it's too fast to dissect it to the point where you can call out everything that happened. So I will look at the secondary for one play, then I might look at the trenches for another play, and
kind of go back and forth. I also tend to because I'm an offense guy and I like quarterbacks and receivers. I tend to try to play quarterback a little bit too, and like kind of look at the coverages and the route combinations and try to figure out where the ball should be going, and seeing where the quarterbacks go and then trying to either reverse engineer why did they go there or figure it out from there.
I would say on top of that, And I generally go back and forth between, Like sometimes I have the binoculars and I'm on one player, and then sometimes I just put the monoculars down. I say, I just want to watch, Like I said, I can't see everything, but you can get the general flow will play, Like I want to see how this whole thing plays out, route combinations, things like that. Yeah, no, oh, what you're watching before the play. You don't want to go what you don't
want to do. I learned this the hard way my first year. You don't want to go into a play saying all right, I'm just gonna wait and see what happens. And I'm just gonna look to where the actions because like, you can follow the ball, but if you're following the ball to the catch point, by the time the ball's caught, that receiver has already made his play. If you're you know, following the ball and somebody gets a sack because there's no you don't tackle the quarterback. But you saw the
player get sacked. You didn't see what he did, right, You didn't see the movie put on, so and sometimes you'll miss it sometimes, you know, I'm like, all right, I want to watch this receiver on this play, and I get the binoculars out and I can't even see what's going on at the line, you know, in the box. I'm just watching the receiver and then to run And I just watched a run off that sucks. It happens sometimes, and that's why I also, you know, it's another point
I'll get too bigger. Know the drills listened for the drills, but before each play kind of decide, I'm gonna use the binocas, I'm gonna watch this guy, I'm gonna put him down and I'm gonna watch all this or I'm gonna watch Trent Brown on this player, I'm gonna watch Taekwon Thornton on this player, I'm gonna watch Christian Gonzalez. Decide before the play happens what you want to watch, because if you wait until the play starts, like you said, it's very faster.
Yeah yeah, and with the in the trenches in team drills, frankly, sometimes you're not going to see what the blocking scheme is if you if you know how to dissect blocking schemes, like if it's you know, a gap player, if it's his zone player, if it's a there's a polar like that.
Sometimes the runner just kind of comes out of the line of scrimmage and you're just like, oh, oh, they he got through right, like you know they You we don't have the benefit of the film, like we can't go back and watch practice film like the like the team does. So there's that what's some of the like standard drills. I think some people like don't necessarily people know that level, so maybe yeah.
So I think so there's there's different kinds of practices, and there's different drills within the practice. So I think it's important to know that there's non padded practice, padded practice, and joint practices, and.
They they're they're waited.
You put a lot more stock into what you see to padded practice than in a non pad practice. The joint pract are the cream of the crop.
That's like it, right, So those are like glorified preseason game.
If if you think an offensive lineman had a bad day and an odd padded practice, you'd miss something like you just you can't go off of that.
Yeah.
Within that, I mean there's three kind of umbrella drills and then we'll break down from there. There's generally there's is sometimes you might see some other numbers, but there's ones, there's fives, and there's seven. Yeah, so ones is one on one and that can be receiver corner, that can be a nine ozer line.
Sometimes you get like the ball.
Carrier linebacker safety drill where it's like tackling in space.
I also like the personally they do. Sometimes they do linebackers, safeties versus tight ends and running.
Backs, which I like one on ones yeah so so, but but you'll have guys going one on one. Ye, you'll have seven on seven or I think some people call it shells or scale U skeleton, and that's basically that's only a passing drill and it's the quarterback and there's a center there, but he doesn't do anything. Yeah, there's quarterback, center and five skill position players and then it's seven place in the secondary. And that's more so used.
You're not evaluating off sevens. It's very rare evaluating off sevens. That is a all right, we're gonna that's essentially the rehearsal. All right, this is what we want the concepts to look like. Let's get the timing down, let's get the rhythm down, and then you get into eleven's which is exactly what it sounds like, eleven on eleven live reps. This is it when they go like sometimes it's a
long practice all a minute. Sometimes with the chat in the tent, there were chatting or you know, whatever, What do you think of this?
What do you think of that?
How is your day eleven's happened the game one. Everybody stops what they're doing. You're watching eleven. So eleven padded practices, eleven drills padded practice. That's where it's being decided. That is as close to real football as you're gonna get. That's the stuff you want to watch. And then i'd say, on top of that, you'll if you listen, you'll usually hear. So they're on a clock and there's a clock, you can see it. There's a scoreboard, and that's how long
each drill is. And sometimes they go a little over. But there's a big horn at the end of each session and somebody calls out what the next drill is?
Sticks? Is it sticks? Okay? Yeah?
And he's got a massive voice.
Is it just him? Sometimes?
I think other people?
Yeah, well the echobs sticks is the is the tall black you'll see sis.
He's tall, he's got a beard, he's got an airhorn, he's got a big booming voice, and he'll yell out with the drill is and.
Sometimes he's the Patriots equipment manager. Yeah.
Sometimes we don't know what it means. Sometimes it's like a code word. But sometimes he'll be like he'll say like run fits, run fits. It's like, all right, they're practicing runs. So what I said before about if you're gonna pick one player and watch, if you hear Stix call out something that says run in it, probably don't watch a receiver during that period because odds are they're just doing runs. If you hear something about like during sevens,
don't watch the center. You don't need to watch the center during sevens. Yeah, some and some drills are both. Some drills are running and passing, and then you have to decide. But if you can kind of hear what he's saying, or you watch a couple of reps, you might get an idea, and it can be more narrow than run or pass. It might be outside run, it might be screens, it might be this, it might be that.
If you get a better idea of what they're doing, it helps you know what to look for and look for where the action is really gonna be.
Yeah, that's that's a really good point. I think that early on, for everybody, it's not it's not just don't take it like like it's just you. For everybody, early on, figuring out what the heck is going on is a challenge it's a lot and if you didn't play football growing up at like like in high school or something like that, you're you're really looking at something that's a completely different language in a lot of ways. You mentioned one on ones uh, skeleton or seven on seven as
some people call it, eleven's Uh. The Patriots are a team that does does do some nine on seven as well, and nine on seven is typically running. Some teams call it inside six. I think the Patriots called old school nine on seven.
Uh.
That's usually seven blockers against nine defenders. And it's a undrill. So there's that too. And then the Pats, as you probably would expect, do quite a bit of open field tackling stuff as well. But what they're not necessarily tackling to the ground in those drills, But what they're trying to do is they're trying to play the leverage right,
so play to help or play to the sideline. So you'll often hear coaches yell during those drills, and that those drills get intense, like the coaches try to get on guys during that portion and they'll yell things about, you know, force them to your help for them to you know, play your leverage things like that, and they're talking about as either your help is either in the middle of the field, like you're trying to funnel him into the help defender in the middle of the field,
or you're trying to use the sideline as your help and that might be where your leverage is at, so you're taking that outside leverage position to push them back out to the sideline. Those are some of the other kind of nuanced drills that I think that they do. They did some new drills in the spring of some conditioning stuff. I don't know if we're going to see that in camp.
I got that last day when they were doing all that running.
Yeah, that might that might just be a spring thing because it is more of a conditioning camp than it is a real football camp. So I think the other couple of things that I wanted to mention were just some of the other like tells that you can kind
of pick up on music. Music is key, yes, because the Patriots they try to simulate a game environment, so they used music as crowd noise essentially, and you can tell that they are really ramping it up during team drills during elevens is Alex laid out when the music starts.
Going right because they want to make it tough to communicate.
So when you hear bon Jovi or it tends to be like eighties rock, right, I wonder who's picking it. Yeah, it tends to be like some bon Jovi or something like that. Every once in a while you can tell the players have the ox cord and it will be rap or something like that.
Or Luke Colms if it's David Andrews. There's that one day the spring where it was all Luke Colms stuff. But yeah, and I would just add on top of that goal line too, is another sign that they're really ramping up. Like music and goal line means okay, like I said before, you had like one seven's, eleven's and then there's another and then padded and unpadded. The other factor here is music, no music, and where are they on the field? Are they doing?
Two minute?
Are they doing? You know?
If they bring out the downs.
Sometimes they do eleven on eleven, they just do it in the middle of the field, right, and they just keep resetting the ball at the same spot. But sometimes you'll see they'll bring out down markers and they'll move the ball based on the place. If they're moving the ball they're at like the more layers there are, the more stock you should put into that drill.
Basically, Yeah, and then you also have to think about or look at you talked about looking at the coaches during team drills during eleven on elevens, Belichick will often call out situations. And that's another sort of patriot centric thing that you know. I've been to a bunch of joint practices and now at this point, they don't do that as much as far as they can tell, at other places. Now, in Vegas they did it because you know who's coaching Vegas, right, But in other places they
don't do it quite as much. But what you'll see is is you'll see a bill kind of bark out some things of like thirty seconds left on the clock, it's first and ten, you're at your twenty five, you need a field goal to win the and they'll literally play out the entire situation. They'll drive the football and it goes either way. Sometimes Alex, they they just move the ball to the spots just to go through the
motions of the drill. Right. Sometimes it's truly competitive and like the defense has an opportunity to get a stop and if they get to stop, the defense wins the drill. And sometimes the offense just moves the ball anyways, just so that they can practice the situation. So thirty seconds ago balls on the twenty five you need to get
into field goal range and they'll play it out. They'll go down the field and then they'll sub off the offense for the field goal team and they'll force a field goal up and if it goes through, it goes through. So there there's a lot of that at a Patriots practice.
A lot the Patriots, don't you mentioned like putting the ball in the middle of the field and just do an eleven on eleven to do The Patriots do that sometimes for sure, but they don't do as much of that as some other teams do, I don't think, because a lot of their stuff is strictly situational. Last thing for me, maybe if you.
Haven't got I got one more.
Yeah, last thing for me. If you're gonna come to early training camp, like first couple of days, it's not gonna be in pads. They put that out there first and foremost. Second thing every single year that I've covered the team, which for camp, the full game it's been nineteen, so that's what four years now. Yeah, this is going on five. They have started with red zone and every single.
No, we started in eighteen. We covered a super Bowl, dude, I.
Know, but it wasn't a camp at eight you were, No, it wasn't.
You were definitely had a couple practices late in the year. Okay, they started in red zone every single time. Yeah, every time.
If they don't start in red zone, it will be the first time that Paul Perillo said that they haven't started in red zone in like twenty years. Eight. I don't think that they barely did non red zone stuf. Last year. Everything was in red zone. So get prepared if you're gonna come for the very first practice on July twenty sixth, to it not be padded and for them to live the entire time inside the twenty.
They're gonna live in red zone. Whenever you come.
They do a lot of red ze. Yeah.
The last thing I would say, it's gonna sound very predictable coming from me. Uh, be careful judging a playoff single mistake. Yeah, And there's two reasons for that.
One is that everybody's susceptible to this because it does stand out in your right, it's impossible for it not to.
So one. This is a classic belichickism. It's okay to like, everybody's gonna make mistakes, don't make the same mistake twice. And that's what I watch for. Right, Tom Brady got picked off in training camp.
At times it happened.
What they want to see is do you learn from that mistake and do you prevent yourself from making it again. You've got to remember, like And the other thing is sometimes there's instances where they're trying things. This is an experimental kind of atmosphere where you can fool around things. They may say, hey, Mac, you know, try throwing this route on this concept and see what happens. And he might get picked and everybody goes, oh, Mac Jones threw a pick. Well, the coach might told him to throw
the ball. Throw the baller and see what happens, right, and things like that, or sometimes it's and this is I don't know if the Patriots do this, but I know there's other teams that do this at certain players ready, Like for instance, to get Mac ready, they may go to Trent Brown and eleven on eleven peer and say, let you down through the snap just let you done through and it looks like Trent Brown took a snap off, but they wanted Mac to have to deal with that pressure.
And people go, oh, so you're excusing Trent Brown. He said, no, it can happen to anybody. But yeah, they may tell a corner. Hey, just you know, just fall off, fallfter out, fafter out. We want to see things.
Like That's a big one. Is especially late in the practice when they are go to like more like a glarth fied walk through. Yeah, a lot of the times they are just letting them catch it, like right, it's not a true live drill. I think that that's a really good point that that this is a hard thing to decipher.
Yeah, but it's not like it's really not Oh this player messed up, he's done. It's is the same Are you seeing the same player making the same mistake or trailing or like, is the same player putting himself in the same bad spot repeatedly? That's when you get into it. One bad play sometimes and sometimes guys have bad plays. It's not to excuse all of it. One bad play. You can't write a guy off because one day a
chance makeup for it. And two you don't know what the scheme was, the situation, the story I always tell and I don't This wasn't one where the coaches told him to do it, like that's something that happens. This is one where I think a guy made a bad mistake. I was a training camp. I used to go every here with my dad. I was a training camp two thousand and nine. He was kind of late in the summer, and they were padded and they were doing red zone and it was a rough day for the defense, and
you could tell they were getting frustrated. I think there was a fight earlier in the day and it was the ones against the scout team. And Brady drops back and this journeyman defensive end comes flying around and clocks him Tom Brady, and he had a run two laps. I think it's the only time I've ever seen a player run two laps for like one mistake. And my dad leans over. So that guy's not making the team.
It was Rob Nikovic.
So you know it's like if a guy makes one bad play, yeah, you can say he made a bad play, but clearly Rob Nikovitch made the team. Clearly he overcame that because the rest of that camp, he was excellent. He was great that year. So that's why again, it's not about oh, this guy made a bad play, let's move him down the depth chart. It's I keep like, I keep seeing this guy coming up on the wrong
end of a drill. It's that kind of thing. And it may not be he may not be making these massive mistakes, but it's like, man, you know, it feels like four or five times today, I've seen this corner in coverage when a ball gets completed.
It's that and maybe they're not.
He's not clearly getting beat, but it's like he's allowed a bunch of catches today, or you know, I just this edge rusher has not shown up. It's been a good day for the defense, but this edge rusher is not. That's more what you're looking for than just oh he made a bad play.
He sucks. Yeah, I think that just to wrap this up, and then we'll get into some of the the fun suggestions here. Yeah. The one of the harder things to do as well is to decipher what is truly live and what is is not are what or what's like you know, sort of the line of lines that you were saying, like they're telling them to do this right right, So a lot of the time we get you know, a perfect example just happened at the end of the spring.
They're doing a job what i'd call jog through, which is a walk through, but they're at least kind of trying to put some pace to it. They're jogging around and Mac Jones just kind of lazily flicked the ball out into the flat because it's not a live drill, it's not meant to be a live drill. And Kyle Duggar jumped in front of the pass and returned it for a pick six. Yeah, and Mac kind of got on him about it, and after the practice he kind of mentioned it in his press conference as well. And
I'll give credit to the beat. Most of the guys said Mac threw a pick six at the end of practice to Kyle Duggar, but it looked like it was it wasn't a live drill, Like, don't take it seriously. So when those things happen, you got to be able to try to keep in mind or decipher that that wasn't actually live. Kyle dugger shouldn't have picked that off. It wasn't the point of the drill, and that was just that wasn't something to hold against Mac like you
herew that in. Right. There's also instances where they might be practicing hail mary's, and of course the hail mary might get picked off or heile mary might go for a touchdown or whatever. It might be a horrible decision that he's throwing at hell Mary into three defenders, right, But that was the drill. It wasn't like Mac just chucked it up. It just that they were running a hell Mary.
There's even time I know, So I don't know if the Patriots have done this. I know I went to a a Bills training camp when I was up in New York. This was years ago, so like pre Josh Allen and all that, and there was one where like three plays and I forget who the quarterback was that it was like their third string quarterback, like the guy like never made it in the league. But like three plays in a row, the guy throws a pick and we're sitting there like what's going on?
It's terrible.
Nobody was close. And then we found out because some day I knew like intern for the team whatever, it was a interception return drill. Oh, so is everybody. I remember everybody walked in. I remember seeing Bill's writers being like, this was one of the worst periods I've ever seen. He couldn't stop but throwing interception and I don't know if the Patriots do that not. At the point is like you never really know. So again, it's kind of that consistency thing. Are you seeing it throughout the day?
If you go multiple days, you continuing to see it, that's more what you're looking for.
Well, that was a lot of information, but hopefully it was helpful, and I think the biggest the biggest thing that we could suggest, other than to bring sunscreen, that's
the biggest thing I could suggest. But other than that, the biggest thing that we could suggest is have a game plan, just like they do right, come into practice or go into every single drill with a plan of this is what I'm watching, this is what I'm focusing on, and stop trying to see the forest because you're not going to be able to so just focus on the trees, right,
And I think that's that's the hardest part. And we're like I said, you know, we have the benefit of being able to split up duties with our colleagues and also going every single day. So it's different for us in that respect than it is for somebody coming out to camp once. All right, a couple of more fun things here. Yeah, what what's like your your favorite activity
to do while you're down here other than going into practice. Like, if I had to make a suggestion just to I would say, if you have the time, if you're looking for to kind of make a day out of it, the Pats Hall of Fame.
Yeah, go to the hall. Go to the hall, and a lot of people just like I want to walk around.
I don't want to watch the movie. Watch the movie.
Watch them there's a movie before you go in.
It's the best part. I love the movie.
I get at one point in my life I could like quote a word for it. Have you been fifteen minutes? Have you been to Cooperstown? I have?
Okay, So they have a little movie there as well. It's you I know. But I'm not saying it's better. I'm just saying, like, when you go to a Hall of fame, you go to you watch the movie.
It's autumn in New England.
That's how it's That's how it starts.
If that's not enough to sell, if that doesn't give you chill, And there's like do you want to narrate it?
Or I probably could. I used to be able to prose good.
There's like like high shot and they're panning over like Cranberry bogs, and you see the trees are like.
Orange and brown?
Do you know we in New England? So good every time.
The first time that I learned about the Cranberry bogs were when I started working here. I had no idea those even exist.
I mean I grew up down the ship like I grew up, you know in Sharon, Cranberry bogs in Sharon, ocean sprays right behind.
You can go watch you can go look at the craw Brady box up at Patriot Place in the in the back. That's true, they're behind.
I don't want to call it a hike because it's a fun block. It's a nice walk. It's a little bit of a walk probably in the summer is probably tough. I normally do that like in the fun.
All right, most important lunch recommendations. Okay, this is important. This is really what we're talking about here.
So I at Patriots Place. Yeah, I really like Anchildo's it's a good suggestion, which it used to be a mos if you're familiar with it, that's like obviously Burrito the Middle five Guys is and uh, what is that still? I want to say, bunch of places around. Yeah, Anchelito's is good. Bartloui is always good. If you're like staying late you want to do dinner. Saga is a LATCHI play sushi. That spot's really good. But if you just want to grab like a quick lunch on your way in, the spot is.
Good food Store. We gotta go to Good Food I.
Have been going there since I was in high school. It's a US, so it's I used to go there when I was in high school and I see like my grease there. Yeah, and now I go there.
But that's you can't wrong. Don't undersell how popular you are at good food Store. I walk in with Alex a good food store and you would think the freaking mayor of Shamnon.
You are going to see odds are if you go to good food storre you're gonna be either see somebody went to high school with or somebody went to high school with with parents.
Yeah, every time somebody knows Alex and we walk into Good Food Store full disclosure. We try to go every Friday during the season to flow. Yeah, it's a mandate, we know. And we go to Good Food Store for lunch in between practice and a media availability in the afternoon. You have a little bit of a gap there most of the time, a couple of hours and we go to Good Food Store and we both get the same thing every single time, which I think is al we.
Don't we we don't change our or we get different things, but like each.
Week, Yeah, so I typically go with the honey turkey sandwich. Yeah, which Morella, who knows my turkey sandwich order, is not going to be surprised at all by this. It's smoked honey, turkey, honey, mustard, lettuce. You know you. I'm not a big like veggies guy. But like, you can get the works on it. You can get cheese on it if you want. And but but Alex gets the samwich. Yeah.
Well no, So there's a couple when you go in on the wall, they have like all the big posters of all their sandwiches.
Alex Bartha is gonna be on there some.
No, it's called the Blackjack. I hope they don't change it. It's called the blackjack. That's what I get. But there's like a little like all the sandwiches that you I had the other sandwiches there at other times you cannot go wrong.
It's it's really freaking good. It's really good. We had Matt Dolla from ninety eight five. He came with us last year for the first time, and even he had to.
Everybody who goes rolls their eyes because they're like, oh, you're definitely over hyping it, and then they get the sad one with you, like it's no way it's this good, and then you win, You're like, that's good.
There's also jersey mikes. There's also jersey mikes. That's that's the uh, I can't do jersey mikes like that. I gotta go No. I know that's your spot wall pull right at the end of root one. But if you're going in Patriot Place, Angelito is a game sensitive stomach, like I do, they'll be prepared for afterwards.
But so I would say, of all the like, there's some like obviously good like sit down places, right, but if you just want to like go in grab food, keep your day going, like like grabbing gold places, I don't think you beat the Toledo's up there. It's it's it's really good.
It might be the kid in me, but Red Robin still does it for me a little bit. I mean, I like that. That's different.
It's like you're sitting down or like committing Toledo's. It's a burrito place. You get your bawl or your burrito.
It's just like a Chipotle, but it's nicer than better. Yeah. But if I'm sitting down at Patriot Place, I'm still going to the Red Robin. I am. I like Barlouis.
I like, I can't remember what it's called that. It used to be CBSC and they've changed the game so many times. Sport Club now CBS Sports Club, whatever it is. Yeah, that place is pretty good.
That I think. If I if I had to watch a game at Patriot Place, not that we have to do that.
Do you remember our first year we covered a gate, covered a game from there with drags. It was that Lions game.
Yeah, they got killed.
They got killed by bad game. Bentley got hurt.
That was awful. Yeah, but that that's Uh. Those are the most important recommendations we give. And good food store if you're just looking for like a sandwich. You know, in and out. You're not looking to really spend a ton of time. It's worth the drive down the street. It's not it's not in Patriot Place, but it's like ten minutes away. Yeah, it's It's it's a like a local spot. So you're not going to I love Jersey Mice,
but you're not going to Jersey Mice. You're not going to Panera like it's it's one of those like authentic to the to the area. So TVs Sports Scenes is no longer there. It's called the Harp. Now that's right. Well I love the Heart by the Garden, So there you go. Are they expecting I'm not gonna we work with Patriot Place. I'm not taking shots at the people Patriot Place. But are they expecting people to like go out like they do in Boston at the Harp placed.
I'll go to the Harp before Celtics game just for dinner. Yeah oh really, Yeah, I didn't know it was like a place like that.
Oh yeah no, they got good food. I assume it's the same. I'm gonna assume it's same. Men, you were close to it, So yeah, the Harp down by the Garden is really good food. People don't know that, but they do so. I again, if the food is anything like that, that's definitely a spot you can go.
Okay, well that they just opened that. I'm still going to Red Robin, all right, I'm pretty sure the Red Robin still does the unlimited fries if you sit down, get as many fries as you want.
I remember the Onion Ring Tower.
So there's like seventeen different like huge burgers that you get. I mean that like you're in for it. You know you're gonna you're gonna.
See that you have if you're doing Red Robin or or the Harp or like one of these sit down place or even Angelitos because it's heavy. It's a burrito that's after practice. Do not do that before practice. Well, you are gonna hate yourself. I'll give you.
Want one more spot. Yeah, it's good. So it's it's probably about the same drive as good food stores.
Not at Patch place, but if you go to Ward's Berry Farm and Sharon, oh we we've been there before. Yeah. Yeah, they also have really good sandwiches. You can sit outside. Smoothies are amazing. Uh, that's another good spot around here.
You might also see many deuce deuces works at words. He does. I gotta go to it. I've been meaning to go there. Now I really gotta go, he does. And is is your ice cream spot too far away? Like that? Oh Cridge Crescent Ridge?
I mean it's if you really want to make a day of it, like at the end of the day, it's on the other side. It's like, so you got to drive. I guess it's not that far because you come up Route one. You basically got to drive through Sharon. You gotta drive all the way across Sharon. But yes, there's an ice cream place called the Crescent Ridge. It was I think it was Time or CNN did this big thing a couple of years ago. That was the one hundred best ice cream place in America and Crescent
Ridge came in second. And I've been to the place that came in first, and I didn't think it was very good. Crescent Ridge is the best ice cream you'll ever have. If you really want to wrap up your day in style, you go to Cridge.
What can you tell he's from Sharon or can you tell you's from Sharon? You know I'm from around here. I know where to go. What's the what's so bad about It's good dhen Alex and I first started working together. He gave me, you know, I had the whole lowdown. I knew where to go to eat for lunch, it's important, and all those types of things. So there we have it. That's that's our Patriots training camp day. If we had to sum it up, you got get to practice a
little bit early. You don't have to be there an hour early. Well, I guess with the fans that you if you want a good spot.
If you're going on the weekend, do you want to get there pretty early. If you're coming during the week especially like after the first day, it's it's not too bad. But if you're coming on the weekend, either show up really early or if you show up like right on time and you're part of that later group, you might get in the overflow, which is up on the rams, right.
So come a little bit early. I would say, it doesn't have to be two hours. You don't have to camp out, but come a little bit early. The second thing that I would say, you know, all the things that we said about, you know, try to focus in on little things that practice. Try to see the trees, not the forest. This isn't you know, you're not gonna be able to see everything, and most importantly, post practice launch it at Good Food Store. We're giving Good Food
Store the top spot. And I'm sorry Jersey Mikes, please don't take it personally. I still love you, but we're giving Good Food Store the top spot and that does it for our training camp. FAQ. This was fun. I'm glad. I'm glad we did this. This was fun, a little bit different, a little bit outside the box. But Alex and I will be back next week on Thursday, same time, same place to break down training camp. Well maybe same time.
We don't know same time because we don't know what the practice schedule is going to be true, but it'll be at some point on Thursday afternoon.
To break down training camp. Can you believe it? We made it. We made it, folks, We made it through the NFL offseason once again. Football will be back. I'm excited, Alex is excited. We're living it up and we'll be back next Thursday to break down all of the happenings out at Patriots training camp and hopefully we'll see you there.