Hey all --

Bill Belichick noted this morning that "the week is flying by quickly" due to the five-day turnaround between preseason games, and he's right. Today is the second and last day of on-field practice for the Patriots, as the team will hold a walkthrough tomorrow in advance of Friday's game.

But the condensed schedule "puts urgency into things" as Belichick said, which can be a benefit to the team.

Other topics Belichick touched on:

** Asked if there's a time when he starts to give the veterans and established players more reps to get them ready for the regular season and fewer to the younger or fringe players, Belichick said that process has already begun.

** The notion of the proposed 17- or 18-game regular season came up, which would mean a shorter preseason and thus less time, in particular, to develop younger players. "With fewer preseason games, there's fewer opportunities to for younger players, no matter what position they play. We want to develop younger players, and you need some sort of opportunity to develop them. The shorter you make it, it makes it harder for some young players, but longer might be too long for some vets," he said.

** When it comes to releasing players -- the first cut-down day is this Tuesday, the final Aug. 30 -- Belichick talks to each player individually "95 percent of the time. We explain the situation. There's a lot of different scenarios and each case is different. But Scott (Pioli) and I sit with him and tell him what the scenario is. As you know, we've released a lot of guys who've come back."

** On getting John Lynch and other veterans brought in during camp up to speed, he said, "(Lynch) has a lot of experience, we're not doing too many things that he's never done before, it's just different terminology." Belichick added that part of the time in assimilating Lynch and others to the system is because now the Patriots are looking at other teams, and what to do in situations that might come up against Team A might be different than a scenario against Team B.