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Situational work
FOXBOROUGH –- The Patriots have concluded their morning practice, players conducted interviews after the workout, and coach Bill Belichick just wrapped up his press conference.
Here was Belichick’s opening statement:
“We’re back on the two-a-day schedule. We backed off contact a little bit this morning and will start to work each day a little bit more on situational areas. Today was the red area. Officials are here and this afternoon we’ll get them officiating some of the one-on-one drills and team drills and making sure we’re on top of all our alignments and hand placements and things like that. So that’s always a point of emphasis at this time of year and something that, as a team, we’re always striving to work for perfection on, and improve on from last year. We try to keep those penalties to a minimum, and be able to utilize the rules to our advantage when we can, situationally.
"It’s all starting to come together a little bit this week, as I said, we move into some situational football and get the officials involved, and things like that. We’re building toward by the end of the week probably being able to sort of look like we could go out there and play a game. … That’s where we’re at.”
After practice, linebacker Adalius Thomas, safety Rodney Harrison, receiver Kelley Washington, defensive linemen Ty Warren and Kareem Brown, cornerback Tory James, and punters Josh Miller and Danny Baugher were a few players drawing media crowds.
Brown, the team’s fourth-round draft choice who missed the first five practices of training camp for violating a team rule, talked about returning to workouts on Monday.
“I was disappointed, but things happened and you got to take it in stride and now I’m back and just trying to do my job,” Brown said. “It’s a great lesson. It puts everything in perspective for you really quick. I got to use it as motivation, and trust me, I’ll be back.”
Asked what happened, Brown said: “I’m not really supposed to talk about it, but I should know better.”
We’ll be back in a bit with our five observations from this morning’s practice
