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We analyze route running, target share, and all the metrics that matter, giving you the insights you need to draft the best wide receivers. As you prep for your draft, let us give you the coverage you need. Follow and listen to Reception Perception on the free Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Back at Gillette Stadium, another Patriots training camp podcast, recap six rings and football things. Practice number nine is in the books in Foxborough. A padded practice, a long practice, two hours plus. Another sunny hot day that Gerard Mayo put the troops through. A pretty extensive workout, and there were some ups, there were some downs. Gerard Mayo talked about challenging his defense. I thought they stepped to the plate. This is Andy Jumbo Hart alongside WEEI's John Lyons. John, your first practice of the summer in-person watching? Yep. What was your, I guess, first takeaway? And I think, I don't want to lead you down a road. I think it's going to be negative, and I think it happened on literally the opening horn of the practice. Yes, Andy. Anyone that knows me knows, I always try to be as fair as possible. I don't try to be too negative with stuff like this, but the first I noticed, Andy, was about eight to 10 players were late for practice. During the stretch period, the Patriots are going through their dynamic stretch warmup, and I saw Christian Gonzalez was among them, but about eight to 10 players come out after that period had started, and then I saw several guys stretching with no helmets on too, and those might seem like little things, Andy. But when you're trying to change a culture in their words, trying to move forward, that's just a little bit too lax a days ago, not quite buttoned up enough when you have, again, it's not one guy late for practice because there's an injury or some special treatment. It's eight to 10 guys just coming out late, not ready to go. And I want to be clear here because I love that that's your observation. First of all, this was the first time it looked like that. So it wasn't like, you're like, wait, this is day nine. Do they do this every day? No, they're scragglers at times, but there was, and I think you might have actually undersold it. I think there might have been a few more players in that, but it was notable because it was a group coming up the steps last minute, now kind of scrambling to get out into the stretching. And I don't think this is a male in Belichick. To me, this is not a male thing. It's not a Belichick thing. It's a football thing. It's an, it's almost not even a football thing. It's almost just be there on time. Any large group of people, like if you run into a sales meeting of 30 people and 10 show up late while the CFO or CEO or whoever the hell runs those things is talking, I feel like that's a bad sign for the culture and operation there. So I'll be interested to see if that's addressed. And if that lingers, my guess is, I'm just going to guess having been around the NFL for like a quarter of a century, literally. I guess no one will be late next. We take the field on Monday one day a day off on Sunday on Monday. I don't think anybody will be late. Matthew Judon was on the field again. He was in sweatpants again when everybody else is wearing practice pants. Gerard Mayo was asked about that. Like, is he wearing his lowers? Does he have pads on? Mayo got a little snippy with our friend Mike Giardi and said, like, we got shoulder pads on. He acted like, but he did make a comment that said, like, we don't do uppers. It's either full pads or no pads. And then Judon came out and maybe Adam on underneath the sweatpants. I know, I know he didn't have pants on. He did not have practice pants on. And 89 other players or however many else are practicing have there either blue or silver Patriots team issued practice pants on. Judon does not. Judon once again took part in everything. I actually think he was a little more active today than yesterday when people gave him practice full credit yesterday. There was one 11 on 11. The first 11 on 11, he went in, had one play where he kind of took on a running back as a lead blocker and then tapped out and went and sat on a gatorade. And I was like, that's not full participation today. I thought he took part. I don't know where this is going. I will say, Gerard male pre practice said, we've moved on from Judon. We're both in a good place. I believe was the quote. What that, I don't think Judon's moved on. I don't think he's like, all's good here. He hasn't gotten his money. And I think this whole thing, Andy, is a learning experience for the team because in February, they should have come in knowing and I'm going back to February that, hey, we have all this money. We're going to pay Onwenu. We're going to pay Duggar. We're going to try to pay peppers, Stevenson. They should have known then, hey, either we're going to pay Judon, but we're going to move on from them. Oh, we're going to tell them, hey, we're not going to pay. You're not going to move on from you. This is a contract. You're going to go, aren't it? It feels like none of those decisions are made, none of those conversations are had. So it's not just Andy. Oh, Barmore got paid. One guy. Judon can look around at half the defensive out on the gut extensions are going to be made. I mean, Barmore, Duggar, Godshop, Tavai, all these guys got extensions, got money. And he probably looks at it and says, I'm better than all these guys are at the very least just as good. Right. So again, I think this whole thing is you have a rookie head coach, you have a rookie GM. I know he's an executive vice president player person now, but two rookies in those positions. I think there's a big learning experience for that. I agree. And I think that's why Gerard kind of changed philosophies, you know, we believe keeping everything in house. And so we'll see where it goes, but he said we've moved on from Judon. So we'll have to keep noting what Judon is doing, I guess. Okay, let's get to the actual practice action. Yeah. You know, there was a lot of run game. And I think the run game right now is all about which side you're watching it from because if you're looking for a defense, that's going to be good. The run defense looks pretty good. Yeah. I don't see a lot of holes. Now, the flip side of that is we're all worried about the offensive line and we have a team that has admitted via its head coach, via its offense coordinator. They want to run the ball. The running game is going to be the basis of the offense. Well, after today, I would say that your offense is not going to be very good because there were not a lot of holes to run through. Well, the biggest thing I noticed on that front is Vidarian Lowe was the top left tackle with the first day. Yeah, second day in a row. He has been out there. Right. They've rotated through. It was Okora 4. Then it was Wallace. Now it's like Lowe was getting his shot. I don't know if I feel confident in it. Well, and that's the issue too is they want to route this off season where they bring in a core of four who's played his whole career right tackle except for a couple snaps, literally at Pittsburgh. Then they draft Kate and Wallace, 2,200 snaps at right tackle at Penn State, a big fat zero at left tackle. So if you can convert one of them, OK, you're in good shape. But if not, that's maybe why we see a guy like Vidarian Lowe out there with that first team, a guy who, look, I have a lot of confidence in Mike Onwenu and David Andrews. I think City So had a good end to last year. There's some guys that are confidence in, at this point, I still don't have confidence in that left tackle spot right now. We didn't see a lot today to engender confidence. So the next big topic we've touched on June on, obviously the quarterback play, a lot of reps for Jacobi Bursett. He is continuing to solidify himself as the starter, although preseason reps were a topic in the pre-practice media meeting with Gerard Mayo, he said he doesn't know who's going to play yet. He did mention he might know by the end of today, which I think that was interesting as they have meetings and conversations and prepare for next Thursday night. You know, Drake May, I thought he had a solid day today. I actually think Drake May has thrown the ball well and looked pretty good since the one day that he really didn't. And that was the day that led to the Michael Holly, that led to the Colin Coward, that led to the Ben Bull and that led to the idiocy that spread throughout the internet. The ghost of Mack Jones? Yeah. My big takeaway from May is, and I continue to say this, he needs some people to help him out. There were in a two-minute drill today. I think it was his third throw. They're running a little comeback to down the numbers to Juju who falls down. I thought the throw was perfect. If he doesn't fall down, I think the throw hits Juju in the hands. It's a first down. The two-minute drill continues, and instead of a four in out, you actually put something together. This is the second practice in a row where I think his guys around him are not doing enough to help him. And I know quarterback, you make your own plays, you got to bounce back from that, you got to lift others, but help your brother out because Drake May needs it. And I think in times when he did like during seven on seven, I thought he had a really nice throw over the middle to J-1 Pope for a touchdown. Yep. He had another nice throw. He had a long period to pop into Wilcox for a TD, so he had some good moments in there. I thought, again, I agree with you. I thought he threw the ball really well, and I think with Drake May, a lot of the stuff that we said six months ago when we were looking at him in North Carolina are saying that, hey, he's improving as a passer, but he's probably not fully there yet mechanically. Also, pressure, like one thing I found interesting, and I was talking with a few other media folks about this too, is they did a red zone period, and they went empty personnel, which is something that in the NFL, in real life, you're out there, you're going to have to go empty personnel in the red zone. May's not used to that. There was a couple times where you got sped up there, or you didn't make quite the right read, but then, again, you see a play here and there where you think, okay, maybe he's getting the hang of it. I like that they're putting them in that situation because that tells me they're trying to put more on his plate to get him ready to eventually be a starter, not Thursday night, but eventually. Right. My description, and I'm going to steal it from myself from yesterday on the-- The ghost of Andy Hart. Yeah. The ghost of Andy Hart. Everything plus is the way I'm describing. Fine, plus. It's fine. Yeah. With a plus. I would-- you know what? I think that's a fair assessment because I didn't look at him today and see anything bad. No. I didn't look at him and see anything really way below average. Right. I was like, okay, he's a rookie ninth practice, he's doing fine, and then there was a couple of throws. I mentioned the poke one that I was like, oh wow, that was pretty good. And you also had the-- there was the one-- he was under pressure, he was going to be sacked, he scrambled left, and he tried to do the little pitch, underhand pitch. I don't know whether that's going to work out for him or not in the NFL. If you wear number 15 in Kansas City, you can do that. Yup. I don't know about him. And we're going to find out if number 10 in New England can do that because it's certainly a part of his game mentally as a young youthful athletic modern quarterback. I think you're a pick six away from Mayo or Van Pelt saying, okay, put that away, you're not Mahomes. Same thing with the no look passes, the site like, there's going to be an evolution. I'll tell you the throw I liked in a weird way. First throw of the two minute drill, he was looking to the right side. It was completely covered the defense, and he threw it away immediately. I think that is a stupid little minor thing that is growth from an athletic playmaking quarterback. You live to fight another day, the worst thing you can do there is force one and turn it over because it ends the game. Give yourself those next plays. So, okay, let's go on to the defensive side of the ball because as I mentioned, Mayo challenged them to be better. They're supposed to be ahead of the offense. They're supposed to be the strength of this team. Sounds-- seemed like they took it personally. I thought they were flying around pretty good today, especially on the front. A lot of-- I thought like some games and twists and different things that I think gave the old line some problems in the run game led to some run stuffs, but what was your sort of view of the defense as they put it together out there? Yeah, I thought the defense had a good day overall. I noticed a lot of moving guys around, like he on white was playing inside and outside on the defensive line. We saw Jonathan Jones get some safety reps. Oh, yeah. He-- I think he might be the safety. Well, he got some safety reps, some slot corner reps. We know he could play outside. He could be maybe a deeper free safety because that's not really Pepper's game. It's not really Dugger's game. Mapu, I think is a little bit of a hot and cold type player, at least right now. So maybe that is Jonathan Jones game. Of course, if that's going to be his game, you need another outside corner opposite Gonzalez. So maybe that'll be Alex Austin. Maybe it'll be someone else. We'll see. But I noticed just again, the moving guys around and I thought guys played well in different spots, whether I thought Keon White got some good pressure from playing at the three technique over the guard. Like I thought guys moving around. I thought the defense overall, good day. OK, so I want to highlight a few individual players, highs and lows. You can do the same. I know you got your own foot there if you'd like. A high hunter Henry. Yeah. He's a good professional tight end. I expect him to look good. I expect him to look like one of the better players on the field because in terms of experience and talent, he is one of the better players on the field. He did today. Had a one-k-handed catch down the sideline, had a nice catch under the goal post where under pressure, Jacobi Brissette kind of just threw to a spot and Hunter went and got it. I think he's going to be a key part of the passing game yet again for whoever the quarterback is over the course of the season Brissette into Drake May at some point. Disappointing today, number 11 on your program. Maybe number zero in your heart because everybody wants to hate on him. Tyquon Thornton. A couple of days ago, I dubbed him the most consistent contributor in the passing game at wide receiver in camp. He's not practicing today. He came out late. That just falls in line with the disappointment of his career through two plus seasons in New England. We'll see where that goes, what the issue is, why he couldn't be out there. But that's disappointing. And then a name that I'm not overly familiar with, but I thought I had a good practice and I think he's shown up a little bit in camp. Dell Pettis, number 34, a safety defensive back, banging a little bit, active in coverage, active in the run game, active in the blitz game. I don't know if they need Dell Pettis. I don't know how he fits, but Dell Pettis is one of those. I don't know who that is, but he's kind of flying around out there, guys. Yeah, for me, the one player that said, "I'm going to go to the tight end with room with you, but I'm going to go Mitchell Wilcox." Nice. Much down. He also had a nice outro catch, I think, for a first down as well. He just looks like a guy that maybe can compliment Hunter Henry in the passing game. He's not going to surpass Henry, I don't think, but he can compliment him really well, which again, they might run a decent amount of 12 personnel. I think there'll be more 11, but there'll be some 12 disappointment to me, Andy. I went back to it at the very beginning of our program at eight to 10, guys, coming out late. I mean, and it's not one, but I think that's just one of those things. It's just one of those things. On the hill. We're running up. It's one of those little things that you've got guys coming out late as it is buttoned up as it needs to be, and you and I have talked about this off air, too. It's one thing to say, "Hey, we're going to move on from Bill Belichick, we're going to do things differently, but there's certain things that we're done here that you want to keep with." Correct. And like your point, it's not just a Belichick thing, it's a football thing. It's like you want guys showing up on that, because I also think that contributed. I thought it was a pretty good practice overall, but I thought the early portion was just a little bit sluggish, especially in some of those individual drills, and I think that contributed to it a little bit. Yeah. And I think not to play Andy Gresha's side of the street and question the culture and the Mayo in the early days and too nice and play her empowerment, but I still think they're finding themselves in that area. You can be loose, but when you're loose, there's a time to work and make sure the two don't blend. Right, go from loose to work and then back to loose when you're done with your reps. And I also think they've worked on cleaning up pre-snap penalties and things of that. There's still issues there, and then there's still questions, like they ran one play, it was a flat out delay of game that they didn't whistle, they didn't stop the play, and there was a play on defense when the defense had 12 on the field, the guy just ran off, no one really called him on it, they just kind of ran the play. So it's still training camp, there's things to be ironed out, and it's also still only 12 days in or whatever it is when you include the days off after all it may have been season game. Right, there's a lot for him to learn too, and I think one player that has a concern for me right now, Juju is from a shooster, you mentioned he fell on that route, he was taking third team reps with Bailey Zappi during some of those team in two minute drill periods as well. He got on in my opinion. So yeah, I think he may be one of those guys, because if you look at their receiver group, Kendrick Bourne and Demaro Douglas are probably your two best receivers, then if you want a third guy out there and 11 personnel, it's probably Polk, then maybe Baker. So Jalen Rager, I don't think Juju is really in the combination for special teams alone. Yeah, I don't think Juju is really in the conversation unless there are injuries. And Antonio Gibson popped a couple of times, he looked pretty good. Antonio Gibson will be fine if he can stay in the role he's designed for, if Stevenson gets banged up and suddenly Gibson is your lead back, I think that's bad news for him is production in the offense. But that's going to put the raps on another six rings and football things, Patriots training camp practice recap. He is John Lyons. Listen to him. Read him. We will be back on Monday after the Sunday day off for the 10th training camp practice. And then you'll actually hear Lyons, Hart and Meggo on WEI 2-6 to talk about everything we saw. So enjoy your weekend.
