Q&A: TE David Thomas

Patriots third-year tight end David Thomas, who played in just one game last season before being placed on injured reserve with a right foot injury, talked today, following passing camp, about his health, his role in light of the departure of veteran tight end Kyle Brady and the value of participating in the passing camp.

This marks the second off-season Thomas has had to deal with an injury. He broke his foot during the Patriots off-season conditioning program in 2007.

Here are some Q&A excerpts from his interview:

Good to be back out on the field?
"It's always good to get back into the swing of things after you've been injured. The most important thing is to move on and look forward to being healthy."

Are you healthy?
"I'm just taking it day to day and just trying to get better every day and doing what [head trainer] Jim [Whalen] and [strength and conditioning coach] Mike [Woicik] say and just try to do my best and listen."

How important is your off-season program work?
"I think the off-season is important every year whether you're injured or not, working on the things that you need to work on to make yourself a better player and just working on the little things."

When you look back to last year were you 100 percent healthy when you returned?
"I'm not worried about last year. I'm just worried about moving forward and looking forward to getting back on the field this year."

Do you see your role as being any different now that Kyle Brady is not here?
"I think every player's role on the team is what they make it, what you show the coaches you can do. I'm just looking forward to being on the field and being out there day to day and having fun playing football again."

What did you learn from Kyle?
"He's been around a long time. He's got a lot of things that he's done to keep himself healthy. Mentally, the way he prepared for games. I think all of us learned a lot from having him around and he was a good presence in the locker room."

How far along are you in your blocking?
"We haven't put any pads on, so that hasn't been a focus out here in passing camps, but that's something that every tight end [needs]. If you want to be a good tight end in this league you have to be able to block and run and catch the ball. To be a complete guy you have to be able to do it all, so I think it's important to work on all things."

On the Patriots not drafting a tight end this year:
"I guess it might have been a little vote of confidence, but I think they always have guys ready to come in if a guy goes down or is not doing his job, so I think the most important thing for me is to just block out who they bring in and just do my best to be the best player I can be."

On the value of passing camps:
"In the passing camps and mini-camps we spend a lot of time in the classroom and we spend a lot of time working on things in the off-season and you have to take all the things you learned mentally and prepared for mentally and show you can do it on the grass."