New England Patriots: Stephon Gilmore is not here to make friends

The New England Patriots have begun their training camp to defend their title. Recently, we saw Stephon Gilmore get into an altercation.

In what was a busy offseason for the New England Patriots, one can argue that the signing of Stephon Gilmore was the most shocking move made the Patriots.

After a few solid seasons with the Buffalo Bills, Gilmore hit free agency as one of the best cornerbacks on the market. Even though the Patriots had a strong secondary last season, they decided to make it even better by signing Gilmore.

Historically, the Patriots very rarely open up their bank accounts to sign premier free agents. Whether Gilmore will admit it or not, there will be a lot of pressure on him to succeed after signing the big contract. Also, the contract he signed, many expected to go to Malcolm Butler this offseason.

As a former member of the Bills, Gilmore is no stranger to lining up against Patriots wide receivers. In practice the other day, things got heated between him and Julian Edelman. The two were seen in a pretty good scrap and were sent off the field following it.

After the scrap, Gilmore made it clear that he is a different animal on the field, and isn’t looking to make any friends in between the white paint.

"“There’s not really no friends on the field to me,” Gilmore said to Phil Perry of CSNNE.com. “Once I’m on the field, there’s no friends. But off the field, [it’s] very respectful. [I] respect everybody on this team. Talk to them. It’s nothing personal. It’s just when I’m on the field, I’m super competitive and there’s no friends.”"

What was good to see Gilmore say after that was that he does respect everyone on the team and that it was just nothing more than two guys going hard. Having a player like Edelman to go against in practice will certainly help get Gilmore ready for the season. Edelman is one of the hardest workers on the team, and he certainly has a competitive edge to him.

Next: Who are the 10 greatest quarterbacks in franchise history?

Seeing the two getting into a scrap in camp is really no big deal. Both are great players, and sometimes the competitive juices get flowing a bit too much. Hopefully, we won’t see them kicked off the practice field again this summer.