Patriots News: Recapping Day One Of Training Camp
By Cyrus Geller
The Patriots had their first official practice of training camp yesterday, so the bulk of today’s news will be recapping what went down in Foxboro…
The biggest story in my opinion that came out of camp yesterday was Jimmy Garoppolo splitting reps with Tom Brady, and putting on a nice performance in the process.
From Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald:
"It was Garoppolo’s show from there on out. He worked with the starting offensive line against the starting defense for all three 11-on-11 periods while Brady had the second-string offensive line and practiced against the second-string defense. The two quarterbacks worked with a mixture of skill position players.Garoppolo was 24 of 29 overall and an impressive 18 of 21 in 11-on-11s. Though he closed practice by completing his final seven passes in the two-minute drill, five went to Donald Brown and two were to Matthew Slater. It’s important for Garoppolo to move the ball with completions, but it’s also important for him to head downfield a bit more than relying on the running backs, at least during practice."
This is easily the number one storyline at Pats camp, and it will continue to be all summer. With Brady missing the first four games of the year, this will be Garoppolo’s offense for a quarter of the season, and now we begin to see if he will be up to the task.
Obviously there is a TON of time between now and the opener in Arizona, but so far, so good. Garoppolo impressed yesterday, and with the amount of talented weapons he has surrounding him, hopefully he continues to ride this momentum into the regular season. That quick release of his will come in handy in this kind of offense, as it will allow him to get the ball out of his hands, and into the hands of playmakers.
Shaq Mason also was taken off the PUP list, although he evidently stayed on the stationary bike for the majority of practice. With Mason, Tre’ Jackson and Sebastian Vollmer all out, the starting offensive line looked like this: Nate Solder, Joe Thuney, Bryan Stork, Jonathan Cooper and Marcus Cannon.
Staying in-house, our own Connor Fulton predicts the final roster as training camp begins.