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Hartigan cut

There are reports today that former Brown All-American Nick Hartigan has been cut by the New York Jets. The 6-foot-2, 220 pound running back was signed by the Jets as an undrafted free agent but did not see the field in New York's 16-3 preseason opening loss to Tampa Bay last Friday, a game in which the Jets gained just 44 rushing yards.

Last week, New York coach Eric Mangini told the Journal-News of New York that Hartigan was doing a "tremendous job" in camp. With Curtis Martin on the PUP list and the Jets voiding their trade with Cleveland after RB Lee Suggs failed his physical, Derrick Blaylock and Cedric Houston are the team's top backs.

Hartigan gained a school-record 1,727 yards last year as the Bears won the Ivy League title. If Hartigan can't catch on with an NFL team, he has already been accepted to Harvard Law School.

shalise

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Comments 1

Tomorrow's ProJo

One of my favorite people, Paul Kenyon, was here at Gillette today and will have the feature story and Patriots' notebook in tomorrow's Journal.

Paul will profile Bam Childress, the wide receiver who spent most of last season on the practice squad, playing his first career game in the season finale against Miami, when he lined up at receiver and corner -- ala Troy Brown -- and had three receptions for 32 yards and five tackles.

His notes will highlight the Patriots tight ends unit. Bill Belichick has an affinity for the position, and despite having Ben Watson and Daniel Graham already on the roster, drafted Texas standout David Thomas this year. Thomas has been seeing work all over the field in training camp.

have a good night
shalise

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 7:40 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Post-practice Quotes

Rookie FB Garrett Mills, who had a team-high 5 catches for 75 yards against Atlanta last Friday night, is looking at every chance as a learning experience: "The good thing about games is it's a different opponent. The next day you analyze the tape and the coaches say what you did well and especially what you didn't do well."

First-round draft pick Laurence Maroney, who sports dreadlocks down to his shoulders, said he wasn't worried about losing his locks when the veterans came around the rookies with clippers before the first preseason game. Maroney just lost his eyebrows, which he said was enough.

WR Kelvin Kight, who started Friday's game in his native Atlanta but did not make a catch, is thankful that he is getting a chance to display his talent.

"It was great to be able to play in my hometown, to get the opportunity to play football and have fun. This is the first place I've been that I've been given a real chance. It's a blessing right now."

Undrafted out of Florida in 2004, Kight has seen practice field time with St. Louis and Green Bay and last year was on Minnesota's practice squad. He has lived the tough life of being an undrafted free agent.

"The places I was, there were great receivers in front of me. In St. Louis, I was behind Torry Holt and Issac Bruce. In Green Bay, I was behind Donald Driver. Being an undrafted free agent, you don't get many opportunities. You might get one or two opprtunities the whole practice. Right now, I feel like it's a blessing. I'm real relaxed so when the opportunity comes, I'm ready."

Tomorrow and Thursday are the final days of training camp and thus the final days of public practices. Tomorrow there are two sessions, from 8:45 to 10:45 a.m. and then from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. On Thursday, practice is scheduled for 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. As always, check www.patriots.com for changes.

shalise

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

post-practice

The Patriots took to the field for their only practice of the day today in pads and shorts. There was quite a bit of special teams work, especially with the punt team.

There were no surprises when it came to the absentee list: WRs Chad Jackson and John Stone, FB Patrick Pass, S Raymond Ventrone, LBs BrMonty Beisel, Chad Brown and Freddie Roach, DE Marquise Hill, T Nick Kaczur. Tedy Bruschi is still out after wrist surgery, and Deion Branch continues his holdout, which has now reached Day 20.

The play of the day was a 40-plus yard bomb from Tom Brady to Reche Caldwell down the middle of the field. Caldwell was being covered by rookie free agent Gemara Williams.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 7:10 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

The grass is greener...

... on the other end of the field.

The Pats' preseason home opener against Arizona isn't until Saturday night, but the south end zone at Gillette Stadium isn't looking too ready for the game.

Belichick fave Bon Jovi had a concert at Gillette the night before training camp opened, but there are still dozens of square-shaped dead grass spots in that south end zone from the supports for the massive stage.

After a fresh cut this afternoon, the rest of the field looks to be in great shape. The yard markers are there, but the Patriots' logo has not yet been painted.

Today's practice starts in less than a half hour; it looks like the team will be outside.

We'll post again once the session ends.

shalise

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Belichick's morning chat

Sorry for being a bit late with the morning press conference details.

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said this morning that his team has started looking toward's Saturday's game with Arizona, but used the extra day of work yesterday to focus on team-specific fundamentals.

There were a couple of interesting topics brought up, including rookie tight end David Thomas, who has been pretty impressive since camp began. New England's sixth-round draft pick out of Texas, Thomas is 6-foot-3, 248 pounds and ended his career with the Longhorns as the school's career leader in receptions (98), receiving yards (1,367) and receiving TDs (15) for a tight end. He has been garnering attention for his versatility.

Belichick: "He’s got a lot of things that he’s doing. He's involved in all the phases of the kicking game, he’s playing a couple different positions offensively – pass protection, run blocking, pass receiving, some plays out of the backfield, some plays on the line of scrimmage. He’s a pretty versatile guy, we’ll see how that unfolds, but he can do a number of different things and that certainly adds to his value. Anytime a player’s got a lot of responsibilities, a lot of jobs like that, there’s a lot of technique, a lot of things to work on and that’s the case for him. There are things that as he gets more experience with, hopefully he’ll do better but he’s a smart kid, he works hard, he learns well, he doesn’t make very many mistakes out there, it’s just he doesn’t have a lot of experience doing some of the things that we’re doing out there and that’s part of his growth."

With the NFL, as with all pro sports, the season is longer than it was in college, and most rookies hit a wall about two-thirds of the way through their first season. But is there a training camp wall too? Belichick said yes.

"Oh yeah, sure. It’s maybe a lower wall but it’s a wall nevertheless. They just get overloaded with everything – schemes, techniques, the grind of training camp, the level of competition. Most rookies were probably one of the top players on their team and now they’re probably not that and in most cases they were probably physically better than most players they competed against and now they’re probably not that, so not being able to push guys around or run past them or just be a better athlete than other players that they competed against last year in college, those days are… probably not here right now for most of `em. They’re looking at a different type of competition where they’re maybe not as fast or not as big or not as strong or certainly not as experienced as what the competition was last year so it’s a big jump and it hink all that’s adding up. Plus the pressure of being at camp, it’s a job, that whole feeling that rookies have that they need to have of is if I’m not playing football and I don’t make this team, what am I going to be doing in 2, 3 weeks and that’s probably not something they were thinking about last year when they were on the gravy train in college."

Practice has been pushed back to 4:30 this afternoon; Belichick alluded to the fact that today could be the team's first day inside the practice bubble, but it has not rained here for a few hours. We'll keep you posted.

shalise

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments 0