Main page | July 31, 2006 »

Easy, fellas

FOXBORO - Things got a little tense between rookies Corey Mays and Laurence Maroney during the afternoon session. The two got locked up pretty good in a blocking drill and Maroney’s helmet came off as the two fell to the ground.

Maroney immediately jumped to his feet and looked as if he might get into it with Mays. But then the two just slapped hands and that was the end of it.

``It’s just football,’’ said Mays when asked about the incident later.

-- Carolyn

Posted by   at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

In the swing?

When Troy Brown missed practice on the first day of training camp, fellow teammate Tom Brady called him ``country club.’’

So what did Brown have to say when the quarterback was not in attendance at yesterday’s practice?: ``I told you, his golf swing is better than mine. You know who spends the most time in the country club. He deserved it. He’s been working hard the last couple days, so he deserved a day off.’’

Tedy Bruschi also was not at practice.

Deion Branch was still missing in action.

Posted by   at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Eye on the kickers

Kickers were a topic of conversation during coach Bill Belichick’s meeting with the media this morning.

Stephen Gostkowski, selected in the fourth round (118th overall) by the Patriots, comes out of Memphis where he holds the top three spots on the Tigers' single-season record list for points scored by a kicker, totaling 101 points in 2003, 108 in 2004 and 101 again in 2005.

Belichick was asked this about the rookie and the process he will go through to find a replacement for the departed Adam Vinatieri:

Q: Gostkowski never really had a position coach in college. How appealing was it to you when you were evaluating him that this guy had never really been coached and now you can put him under Brad [Seely's] tutelage and maybe take him to another level?

BB: I think for the most part that's a common situation with specialists in college. Having coached special teams for a number of years in the National Football League, I can tell you that is what most college specialists say coming in the NFL. Even if somebody was responsible for them, they had a coach so to speak, but in college you're limited to whatever the size of the staff is, eight coaches or whatever it is. . . . I think there's more of a priority in college for recruiting and things like that and some bigger picture things than just to coach one or two players on a specific techniques. I would say that's fairly common.

Q: In your experience, you try to simulate those situations where you create distractions for the kicker. Is it really kind of hard to tell no matter what you do, how they're going to react in certain game situations and react to certain pressure situations without actually seeing them in it?

BB: Well, I think the more time you spend around them and the more situations that you put them in, the better gauge you can get and that to me, that is what training camp and the preseason games are for. Fifty practices. Four games. Some situational stuff inside the stadium. That's a lot of plays, at any position, and we'll know a lot more than we know now. And that is true of all of our players. To try to make a judgment on one practice, one kick, two days, you just run a much higher percentage that you're going to be wrong. That's all.

Q: Can kicking to win a job approximate kicking to win a game in terms of pressure situations? Can you see how these guys respond?

BB: Definitely, without one you don't have the other anyway. Yes there is definitely pressure at a position like that, where there are only so many you can keep. It's not like offensive linemen where you can keep 10 guys or nine guys, however many you end up keeping. It's a little bit different at positions like punter, kicker, long snapper, quarterback.

Q: Have you ever gone with two kickers?

BB: Not that I can remember.

The media caught up with Gostkowski following yesterday afternoon’s practice session at Gillette. Here’s what he had to say:

Q: How long were your last field goals of practice today?
SG: They were all about 44, something like that. We back up five yards every time.

Q: How about the experience at the mini-camp when they put you out there on the 43-yard line. If you made it there would be no running for the team and if you missed it there would be running; what was that experience like for you?

SG: It was nerve-wracking. It’s just the kind of situation that kickers go through. I didn’t get mad at the coach for putting me in that situation. We have to be able to handle that kind of situation. He threw it at me and I didn’t know what to expect. I’m glad I concentrated and didn’t let it bother me.

Q: Is that something you could take with you into camp as a positive?

SG: I tried to. You try to live off your last kick, and I made my last kick today, so I feel good going in. You’re only as good as your last kick.

Q: How's (fellow kicker Martin) Gramatica?

SG: He’s good. I can’t worry about what he does. He’s good competition. I think he’s good, but I can’t speak to what he’s doing or how he’s been doing. We all get along out there, and we’re just trying to do the best we can and make the decision as hard as we can for the coaches.

Q: How do you reconcile the way you like to kick as opposed to Brad Seely’s suggestions?
SG: You just talk about it day to day. He tells me what he sees and I tell him how I feel. It’s just a relationship that . . . you have to give and take, so you work on it every day.

Q: Can you talk about your first impression through the first three days of camp?

SG: It's tough. You just have to come out and try to get better everyday. You have to bring the same concentration everyday and that's just what I'm working on: getting better every practice.

Q: How do you feel about the ongoing competition? Is there overwhelming pressure with every kick? Do you know they're watching?

SG: When you're kicking, all eyes are on you anyway. So you never feel good when you miss; you feel good when you make it. You just have to try to be consistent. That's all I'm trying to do right now. If I miss one or two one day, I just have to shake it off and go out the next day. There aren't many kickers that don't miss at all, so I just try to go out there and make a lot more than I miss.

Q: How do you feel it's going so far in the regard? Ones you've made versus ones you've missed?

SG: The ones I've missed I know what I'm doing wrong. It's so early in camp we have plenty of time to go and preseason games. I'd rather miss them in practice than in the games so I'm just working hard everyday.

Q: Do you feel like you are yourself right now or do you feel there are some early camp jitters that you need to get over?

SG: I still think they're a few jitters to get over, but it's expected. I think I've handled it pretty well so far and I feel like I'm doing well. I'm trying to get better and better everyday.

Q: How does it feel to have a coach, a position coach, who knows the ins and outs of kicking probably better than anybody you've ever dealt with?

SG: It's good to have the attention. I try to use what he says and we collaborate together, look at my kicks and I try to take it out there on the field.

Q: How much is it the kicking versus the time? I see him sometimes with the stopwatch; is it more of the form or trying to get the timing down?

SG: It's whether the kick goes through the uprights. You want it to be done in a certain time and to be a certain height, but if it goes in at the end of the day you're not going to complain. That [stopwatch] is just top make sure you have the same time, every time.

--Carolyn Thornton

Posted by   at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

7/30 Beli-Quotes

FOXBORO - (Opening comment)...We'll have one practice today after having two-a-days the past two days then we'll get back on that (two-a-day) track tomorrow. We're getting into some situational stuff -- red area, two-minute -- we're moving along. It's time to string some good practices and consistent improvement together and not keep slipping back and having to repave the same road.

(WHY TWO-A-DAYS BACK-TO-BACK AS OPPOSED TO ALTERNATING DAYS? )
We decided to change it up a little bit this year. A little more time on the field a little less time in the meeting room at this point. We're trying to find the best way to be most productive and I think fundamentally we could use the time on the field to work on fundamentals and basics.

(HOW MONTY BEISEL AND TEDY BRUSCHI WORK TOGETHER INSIDE)
Tedy's played in this system a lot more than Monty has. Tedy's instinctively a very good inside linebacker. He reads plays quickly and he understands our system very well and knows where he fits on everything. Monty does too, he just hasn't had as much experience as Tedy has doing it. It has to become a more instinctive natural thing for him (as it was) for him in Kansas City or playing down in college. It's part of the process. We saw that with Bruschi when Bruschi got here in 1996. Playing on his feet, playing inside from what he was doing in college was a big adjustment. He wasn't very good at it, didn't play very much but it's hard to go from one system to another when they're different. Monty made some progress last year and he's already way ahead of where he was last year.

When you're confident you can be more aggressive and you can be more assertive. When you're less confident, you don't want to make mistakes and it tends to slow you down a little bit. Optimally on the football field you want everybody to know what they're doing, be confident in what they're doing, be confident in what the people beside them are doing so they can just be aggressive and do their job. Whether its a quarterback throwing the ball because he knows where the guy's gonna be because he's done it so many times and he's consistent. Whether it's a linebacker filling the gap or a defensive back jumping a route because he knows he's protected in the coverage. All those things.

I agree there's a growth process with everybody at every spot. I experienced it doing what I do. The more you do it, the better you get at it. The quicker you process it, the better you'll be at it. And then you move on to something else and you continue to get good at another skill and separate them and know when to apply them.

(MORE LATER)

Posted by   at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Belichick A.M. Press Conference

FOXBORO - It was, as Bill Belichick termed it, a "Friday crowd" at his 11:30 a.m. press conference this morning. In other words, only print reporters were in the house (about 10 of them) with no TV cameras.

Belichick was slightly late for the debriefing having spent some time with Sports Illustrated's venerable Dr. Z before the talk.

Some of the items discussed were linebacker Monty Beisel and the topic of playing with instincts, receiver John Stone, roster manipulations for third quarterbacks and kickers, the more intense start to camp and the work (or lack thereof) of defensive lineman Johnathan Sullivan.

The only practice today is at 2:30 p.m.

Lemme do some transcribing now and I'll get ya some Beli-quotes.

Tom

Posted by   at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments 0