Training Camp-Cast 8/22: Patriots practice in Las Vegas

new practice facility. Evan and uh, let's start. First things first, Bill Belichick seeing some high praise of this new facility of the Raiders have here in Las Vegas. I guess technically Henderson Las Vegas, gushing about the new facility, saying it was the best he's seen NFL or College in his career in football. Itge is quite the high praise. I mean, it was impressive. He drive up to it. It looks like it's like the Death Star or something

like that. It's all Raider black and maybe a better comparison be like an airport hangar, right, and it just Star Wars themed airport hangar. Yeah, yeah, field and a half inside three almost full field football fields outside when you're out here in the desert, Mike, you got a lot of space, You had a lot of land, and you can do a lot of things with it. But it was very impressive. Yeah, the Patriots made use of it today, just with a solo practice. And let's you know,

start at the top. I know, Dalton Keene was released yesterday. The Patriots are getting down to the nitty gritty of cuts. But we did have some returns today, Isaiah Win, Justin harn as well as Hunter Henry. However, as many might expect, Taikwon Thornton Christian Molkerson remain injured, kind of thinning out the depth a little bit at wide receiver, but Isaiah went in a red jersey. They weren't in pads though,

so it wasn't a high physical, highly physical practice. But Isaiah Win was back in Justin Harnson a nice boost there for the depth as far as offensive line goes. Hunter Henry being back as well becaus a nice boost of the tight end group. But you know, let's let's talk for a second about Taikwon Thornton. That's just an unfortunate report. Mike Giardi saying broke his collar bones, gonna be out about eight weeks and you know, just at the top, that's just a buzz kill. There's no other

way to put it. Or young rookie receiver that that really started to flash and was you know, every time he came on the field, seemed like he was getting better. Tough for him. He's probably out until sometime October November. Now, Yeah, now it sounds like maybe that IR boomerang might be an option for him where he makes the fifty three man roster initially and then gets put on IR after cutdown day so that he can come back when he

is ready. He only has to miss four games technically now based off reports eight to twelve week injury depending on how guys heal and all that sort of thing. But I think the one thing not to place blame obviously on tai Quon because you know, he's just playing football, but I think maybe that would be a little bit of a lesson learned that sometimes he can just go down.

It looked like he tried to gain some extra yards and four or five guys piled on top of him at that point, and especially with his frame and with the size limitations, that he does have. Again, I'm not trying to say it's his fault that he got hurt, but I think that those are moments where you sort of learn where your limitations are on an NFL field. Unfortunately the hard way. But like you said, such a buzzkill, such a bummer, because this is a player that we've

all been clamoring for for the Patriots. It's not just like that they had a rookie receiver that was actually doing something in practice and looked good and looked the part and all those types of things. It's also the speed and the ability to create separation down the field consistently at the top of the route with his four to eight all of those things coming together. This was

a true separator. And I don't know if the Patriots have had a true speed separation type of guy in the way that Taekwon can impact a game in a while. You draft a guy like Nikkil Harry, you hope for the contested catches, right you trade for a guy like Davante Parker, you hope for the contested catches. This was a guy that was creating mountains of separation at times with his speed and with his route running ability and I don't know if they have a guy like that.

The good news is is that it's not season ending, it's not a long term thing. Is not a lower body where it might linger for him or something like that. So hopefully bone teal and he gets back. Yeah. Yeah, So there was a practice today. We didn't quite know what to expect. Patriots are, you know, scheduled to have two sets to join practices coming up with the Raiders over the next couple of days. They had the game Friday night, we were traveling on Sunday, so we weren't

quite sure what to expect. But it was actually, you know, a pretty standard practice from what we've seen. Like I said, they were in shells, but some competitive periods, a lot of eleven on eleven seemed like they were kind of getting the rust knocked off. It wasn't overly physical, but it was probably more physical than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, this was not a walkthrough. This was a shorts and shells practice and they were going

out there doing some situational stuff. At the end of practice, we saw two minute put as actually one minute. They put fifty nine seconds up on the clock real time, you know, running a two minute or one minute drill in this case, and actually going through the steps of what that might look like. And I thought that there were some good throws there, and from Mac Jones, I think when he get to shorts and shells, obviously the big thing is really the back seven. It's like a

passing drill. Most of the time. You're not really evaluating too much about the offensive line and defensive lines in the pass rush, so you're more talking about a glorified seven on seven at that point. And there was one throw down the right sideline to Nelson Agalore that the defensive coaches I think, I don't want to name names, but one of the defensive coaches claimed that Nelson Aglore

was out of bounds. I'm not sure if he was out of bounds, but it probably would have been what probably a thirty yard touchdown or so down the right sideline, a similar throw to the one we saw in the preseason game on Friday night. It did look like Jabriel Peppers might have been able to get a piece of

Nelson Agalore if it wasn't a live hitting situation. But at the same time, it was a nice throw and catch, and you saw still some ups and downs for the offense where it's one two good plays and then maybe a couple of bad ones thrown in there. But I thought, overall today it seemed like they had a little bit more tempo and a little bit more pace than, like you said, like we expected, And maybe I let you

know what they expected. I don't know if the players thought they were going to get themselves into like a real shorts and shells practice today, I know. And then they were. Then they were right in the weight room as we were leaving, like, yeah, bless them working in the heat. Wasn't you know, everyone's telling us it wasn't that bad. It was only about ninety seven degrees today, It's gonna be one hundred and five or so tomorrow. But um, you know, just a couple of guys to highlight.

I thought, you know, Jacobe Meyers showing up with it with a few catches today. You mentioned that end of game kind of scenario where he had caught a couple of dig routes. It seemed like, um, you know, continue to work on that slant the Parker that they tried to hit the other night. That play popped up a

few times as well. Uh, And you know. Overall, I think you're right, though, you know, it's just a lot of eleven on eleven, some red zone work, some situational work, uh, Nick Folk finishing things off with some field goals, and we kind of had a situational block perhaps where it seemed like Cody I was like, did he really block that? It seemed like he was that they were setting it up.

But um, it seemed like a really active day and I should mention I should have said this at the top though, Ronnie Perkins, Harvey LONGI two guys new faces that weren't there, so a little bit of something to watch. They do have to make some cuts tomorrow. I don't I don't think those guys are in the firing line. But no, you do wonder, not to speculate too much, but you do wonder about potential ir and injury stin

for one of those guys this year. It doesn't really seem like Ronnie Perkins has taken that year to leave, not that I really had highlighted him as somebody that I thought was going to come in and be a full time contributor or anything like that this season. But Afredy Jennings, Josh J. They've really taken that role by storm, especially Jennings, And I don't know if there's a ton of opportunity out there for Ronnie Perkins at this point

on the fifty three. Well, it was a you know, it's plenty to talk about today with the new stadium or sorry, the new practice facility and you know, getting out there everybody, everybody on the field, finally getting a little bit of working and after the game. But tomorrow and Wednesday, those will be the big days. Of course, we will be back with a podcast to wrap that up, and you know, all the writing that we do will be summoned, everything up, So it should be a fun

a few days out here in Las Vegas. Looking forward to seeing some old faces, old familiar faces tomorrow Josh McDaniels, Mick Lombardi among others. But we will be back tomorrow after practice to wrap things up for You'll come a little bit in the later afternoon because of the time change, of course, but all building up to the final preseason

game coming Friday. Can we mention one more thing? Yeah, please, we gotta mention little Jordan, because little Jordan, I think we talk about these guys a lot, and I think people see these guys in preseason games and you have to look a lot of the time about who's around

the player. We all think that Little Jordan's shown us something to make the fifty three man roster, but when he's doing it in the fourth quarter against the other team's third and four stringers and Bailey z Appy's in at quarterback, and we're watching him out at practice and it's a lot with the twos and the threes, and maybe leaning more towards the threes because of Taekwon Thornton's injury partially obviously, he moves up the depth chart a

little bit today and you saw him. I believe I have to go back and really check this, but I think that that was the first target that I've seen Little Jordan have from Mac Jones in a practice this summer. So that means that he's actually playing with the starting quarterback.

And I remember people talking about this with Brady with the Austin Cars of the World and Riley mccarrin's, and yeah, they would look great in practice with Hoyer and you know whoever the backup quarterbacks were at the time, but they never actually got any opportunities with Tom Brady, Little Jordan Humphrey, partially because of the injury, partially because he's played well, has at least earned that maybe, and I think over the next couple of days, it'll be interesting

to see if he gets more looks with the ones and maybe even the high twos if you will, or the one bees, if that's going to be the case. And maybe the coaching staff is starting to buy into little Jordan Humphrey a little bit more as well. And it's not just us saying, oh, this guy's going off against guys that aren't going to be on an NFL roster. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't want to undercut your piece. I knew you were writing about him, so but but a

little teaser there. Evan will be writing up a little bit about little Jordan, the wide receivers, the injury to Thornton, how that affects everything. So plenty of news coming out and it should obviously be a fascinating next week or so, as they saw the roster down and you really find out who the team that they're going to carry into the twenty twenty two season. So Frevan Lazarre, this is Mike Dousseau. We will be back tomorrow with another training campcap.

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