FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The New England Patriots are scheduled to hold two organized team activities this week, on Wednesday and Thursday. Those come after three OTAs last week.
That will give the team five OTAs before three days of mandatory minicamp from Tuesday, June 6, until Thursday, June 8.
The club then will finish up with OTAs on June 12, 13 and 15.
There is no media access to this week’s OTAs, so let’s empty out the notebook of a few leftovers from the last few days:
1. Artrell Hawkins, who played for the Patriots from 2005-2006 and implored his brother Andrew to sign with the club last week, said this is what he remembers most about his time in New England: “Really just the team itself and how it operated, how it was self-reliant, how the players kept themselves in check, really strong leadership with [Mike] Vrabel, [Tedy] Bruschi, [Larry] Izzo, Rodney [Harrison], with Richard Seymour, [Tom] Brady, obviously. I was really impressed.
“I remember the first time I walked into the facility, I had been in the league eight years by the time I got there, and I was never, ever awestruck, you could say. But you’d seen [Bill] Belichick on television so many times, Brady on television so many times, I remember sitting in meeting rooms first time I was in the building, ‘Wow, this is crazy.’ Looking over and seeing Brady and thinking, ‘There’s Tom Brady.’ They were successful. It was everything that you wanted in an organization. Then, to be able to work my way into playing time, significant playing time, is what really proved to me I was a good player.”
2. Compare the tight end position around the NFL, and the Patriots might have the most length of anyone, from the top of the depth chart to the bottom. It stood out to me because 6-foot-3 Dwayne Allen, the team’s No. 2 option, almost looked small compared to the rest of the depth chart: Matt Lengel (6-7), James O’Shaughnessy (6-4), Jacob Hollister (6-4) and Sam Cotton (6-4). That’s a big group.
3. Julian Edelman used the words “very smart” to describe those in the team’s wide receiver room. Undrafted rookie Austin Carr has already picked up a nickname, “AC,” according to Edelman.
4. Defensive coordinator Matt Patricia called this the “start-over process” for everyone, including coaches. That was a theme in multiple media interviews, as Belichick said, “It’s a new year. It’s a new team, so we have a lot of new things. Everybody’s starting all over again. ... We’ve all got to earn each other’s trust, and the only way you do it is to go out there and do it. There’s no shortcut to it.”
5. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels shared a coach’s perspective on OTAs when he said, “This is why we do what we do. In the offseason, you spend a lot of days in an office, watching film, talking about things and evaluating all the aspects of your program and what you’re doing on your side of the ball, or techniques you’re teaching, whatever it is. To finally have an opportunity to be out here and have an opportunity to be with the players on the grass, that’s why we all got into the profession to begin with.”
