This is the Patriots Training Camp Cast. The Patriots Training Camp Cast is your source for all the news from Patriots Training Camp.
Well, I do still watch the news.
Practice is over, but the writers of Patriots dot com have you covered what did I miss yesterday? Now here to review today's practice the writers of Patriots dot com.
We have an extra writer of Patriots dot com today, not just Mike Dusseau and Paul Pearl, but Evan Lazarre making his debut on the Training Campcast today on a Sunday, A beautiful Sunday, probably our best weather day of camp thus far. Gorgeous. I agree with you, like missus h from heart to heart. Some some slight changes to the attendants. A couple of guys missing today in addition to Thi Montgomery,
who's out for his second day second practice. Also didn't see kaishon booty today, and I did not see Jake Andrews. That's correct, Okay, so we're all in agreement on the on the attendance, yes, but so we get the book keeping out of the way. I thought, Dare I say, boys that it was a little bit better today offensively? Sure? Yeah, all right, I'm gonna go I'll go I'll go with me. It's deuced. Yeah, I was.
I mean, I think, you know, I guess we can talk about the last period, which wasn't so great. But I thought overall, some of the eleven on eleven stuffy. They moved the ball a little bit, I thought, Mac a couple of checkdowns. But you know, had I would say, that's the most functional of the offense has looked thus far, So you know why you're not overreacting to certain things.
Now.
I had them basically going for at the end, so you know, they're not quite there yet. But but but you know, some some baby steps. I thought, you know, Taekwon Thornton with the twos. The twos moved the ball pretty well too in the red zone. So nice to see Taekwon Thornton get a couple of catches from Bailey z Appy.
Yeah, I got a little extra pep in my step today after practice. I don't know if it was the weather being so great or Sunday, I don't know, but I think what really the reason is that the offense showed me something a little bit today. I think there's a little bit of pushback, which is what you want to see. Mac Jones talking about last week how you want to go back and forth with the defense in training camp. You don't want it to be all one
sided in either direction. I thought today the offense punched back a little bit for Mac. The highlight to me was the dump off to Kevin Harris against the safety blitz by Jalen Mills.
Terrific play.
Just finally seeing a blitz come, get a little hot route behind it, just dump it right off and there was nobody on that side of the field and Kevin Harris waltzed into the end zone. That's the type of play that we've been clamoring for for Mac Jones. We know he's not going to be this josh Allen bazooka armed quarterback, but can you make the cerebral plays. Can
you make the football IQ plays? And that we talked last week about the little heave in the back of the end zone to Devonte Parker where you just saw the blitz coming and just kind of tried to jail break it and get it out of there. This play looked cool. Calm collected against pressure, knew exactly where he was supposed to go with the football and hit Kevin Harris in the flat for a touchdown. There wasn't a ton of downfield stuff from Mac, but I thought he
was on time. I thought he was seeing it well. And I think that's a good starting point. But as Deuce mentioned, there at the end red zone and it particularly inside the ten yard line is still a slog for this group and they're gonna have to figure that out.
No nobody uncovering down there in that last series, and it caused some sacks, some scrambles and things, and it got a little bit unraveled. But I thought both Mac and I totally agree with you on that play. And I thought I think it was two plays later. You know that little jet sweep motion kind of thing. He starts off in the backfield, so it wasn't exactly what
you've been describing a lot. He started off, you know, red, and I don't know if you guys saw Mac motion on the call, so he just he just sees it, right, you know, clearly Max saw something. And that's why, like, I don't want to get too carried away with the throws, because Evan's right, they're just like little checkdowns. But that's the kind of stuff that if this offense, I don't think this offense is gonna win a lot just on
cheer ability. That's how they're gonna have to win. And you know, he just bubbles out as Evan called the tear motion, and it is an easy pitching catch for a play, And I thought that started the juice offensively. And then Zappi went in and I thought, really made
some impressive throws. He was able to get the ball on the end zone a little bit from the high red zone up by the eighteen two in a span of three plays, two absolutely perfect throws to the back left hand corner of the end zone where he finds first Jalen Heard, nice high point then the back of the end zone. Absolutely got his feet in bounds too. I had a good look at that, and then Trey Nixon and then later on I thought the little fade to Taekwon Thornton was just gorgeous. Yeah, a little bit
of butter on that one. So I thought there was some signs offensively. The crowd got into it a little bit at that point. The offensive players were excited about it. Zappi talked a little bit afterwards, just sort of talking about how this is what you're doing. You know, you're working those first three days to put things in place so you can have this be the result. So it was good to see them have some success today. Yeah, I said, I like seeing Thornton one o their plays.
Just want that to highlight was I thought, a really nice play on that. You know, we talked about the ones inside the nine. With Christian Gonzalez just making a great play on the ball Juju Smith Schuster. It looked to me like here comes.
It's gonna be a bang bang play and I was excited because it seemed like Max saw it, but so did Christian Gonzalez almost came up with the pick. But I just it's, you know, another little feather in Christian Gonzalez's cap, who I think continues to kind of rise. You're seeing key on White get a little bit more work with some of the pass rushing fronts, and even Martein Map who.
Who had been real quiet the first few days, starting to scratch.
We got more reps today than the first started to get a little bit of reps on defense at linebacker. Looked, you know, maybe like a two minute drill situation, so they're trying to get You saw three other safeties on the field and him. He's kind of blurring the lines right now. But I thought a good day for those three rookies. And then finally just I would say Ryland too. It looked like he was He hit all his field goals. He looked strong and missed one, took one on from above, but.
He did miss one, and he I thought, I thought everything was better today for the most part. And you guys are right, I mean there was you know, we don't want to just ignore the play. So Jalen Mills, you know, stepped in front of an out on Zappi. Unfortunately, that came in the last play of Zappi's set, which I thought was the best set of offensive plays in four days for any quarterback, and then he ended it with a bad pick on an out. I think it
was intended for Thornton, a little bit telegraph. Uh yeah, And that's a throw that he has trouble with. I think I think both quarterbacks have trouble with that, but I think Zappi in particular struggles with his accuracy on some of those out routes. Jalen Mills, you know, stepped in and picked it off, and you talked about the one. Yeah, that Gonzale. Gonzales just he's my I mean, I know he's the first round pick. It's not like, oh, what a great eye for talent, Paul, but he's my little
He just looks he's my little camp crush. So far.
Two other things just to bring up to Christian Barmore had a baby back fine, and it looked like DeMarcus Mitchell. He was finally starting to participate off of n FI, so he'd been warming up the last few days. Today he was participating, so they got a little bit more healthy in that front. Disappointing for Booty. We haven't seen much out of him anyway though, so it's hard to really But the other rookie part, I'll I'll.
Let you I'm excited about it, but I'm trying not to be too excited. It's four days into trading camp. You don't want to get carried away because we've seen this before where guy comes out and has a great first four days and the pads come on and then you never hear from him again. So I'm trying not to get too ahead of myself. With the Mario Douglas, but I think the big thing with him is that he just plays the receiver position differently than the other
guys that they have on the team. That quickness, that little jitterbug like ability to get in and out of the break. There's really just nobody else on the roster that plays the receiver position like that. And I think when you see him be able to just shake Marcus Jones coming over the middle of the field that little hesitation move, or lose Miles Brian at the line of scrimmage,
and just with pure quickness, just absolute jitterbug quickness. That's something that we know succeeds here, we know can succeed in the slot in particular, And if he can continue this once the pads come on and he's just as effective, then I think they really might have found something here. And it's so Patriots to just stumble into a wide receiver in the sixth round. I think that that's just a coincidence, not but I feel like that's gonna be a big thing.
Oh I do it happened one other time.
Once the pads come on, we can really get excited about tomorrow Douglas. But watching him out here in these types of sessions, it's clear that there's something there. And now he's starting to catch on with some more frontline players and do it against some better corners like Marcus Jones and Miles Bryant, guys that have started for the Patriots last couple of years. So I'm excited, but I'm trying not to be too excited.
So one last thing I will just add. Since the last time we've done Mike and I talked to you, the Patriots did reportedly have a meeting with Ezekiel Elliott, so they're still in that sort of backup running back market. No word on you know how productive that meeting was. I know Ian Rappaport from NFL Network reported that he left without a contract. So we'll continue to keep an eye on the backup running back market that looks like Lennon Ford and now Zeke, so we'll see if they
go back and you get tied to Dalvin Cook. But my guess is I think Monday, when the pads come on, will be a big day for Kevin Harris to see if he can. And I know they don't tackle, but you get a better idea when you're going through the holes that are created by guys actually hitting each other. And how Kevin Harris looks when he gets some of those carries. Yeah, I like the thought of Zeke.
I mean, you know when that popped up, I mean I knew it was possible, but especially when you just see them kind of struggle in the red zone, you know, can can you get another big body back?
Who can?
I know he's not the receiver, maybe that he might have been at one time, but I think just that those are the kind of guys they need to give him a little bit more of a presence and a backup at least to Remandre.
It just looks like we were talking about this on the live stream the other day. There's one point where I looked up because Pierre Strong was working with the special teamers and it's three guys, right, It's just Remandre, Kevin Harris, and JJ Taylor and then obviously Pierre Strong in there as well. But at the at the very least, it feels like they just need another body to get
through the summer. But if it's a guy like Zeke that maybe can contribute as the RB two or backup top backup to Ramandre Stevenson, that's not a terrible one two punch. And although he doesn't have the juice that he had early on in his career. I think short yardage, goal line, those types of situations, I think Zeke can still be really effective. I'm not gonna expect him to be who he was the first couple of years of
his career. I would expect him to be somebody that can carry the ball though one hundred hundred and fifty times and maybe take some of that workload off.
All right, So we're expecting pads. You know. Bill Belichick spoke before the practice. He was asked flat out and he said, yeah, yeah, probably it wouldn't give you a definitive, but I'm expecting it to be in full pads on Monday, and we will have you a live Patriots Unfiltered will do our fourth and final live show, so the gang will be back together one more time. So we will be back tomorrow in full pads, guys,