primarily on Day 1<\/a>, the two-day event as a whole was, for lack of a better term, \u201cwon\u201d by the home team. Vrabel and his club, meanwhile, are left looking for silver linings.<\/p>\nDespite the difficulties, it doesn\u2019t take long to find some.<\/p>\n
For the Patriots, after all, the two practices presented an invaluable opportunity to bond and learn. While they already went up against the Washington Commanders for one day of joint work last week in Foxborough, the Vikings proved to be a different beast. One man in particular is responsible for that: defensive coordinator, and longtime Patriots assistant, Brian Flores.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe tries to create chaos, and I think that\u2019s good for us to see and know,\u201d said quarterback Drake Maye. \u201cSometimes at the line, you may not know, \u2018Hey, is this guy coming, or are they just bluffing that?\u2019 So, it\u2019s good for us to see it, and it\u2019s great for us to learn from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flores spent 11 seasons in New England under head coach Bill Belichick, including the final one as a top lieutenant on the defensive side of the ball. That year, in 2018, he helped lead a defense that delivered one of the best performances in Super Bowl history, holding an explosive Los Angeles Rams offense to just three points. Since then, he continued to tinker with his defense and make it ever more difficult to decipher.<\/p>\n
Maye and company got that experience first-hand this week, and it led to some rough results. While the quarterback himself performed reasonably well, he found himself under repeated duress: New England\u2019s offensive line had its hands full.<\/p>\n
And yet, that unit also sees positive in the experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes you question. It makes you think a little bit,\u201d said offensive tackle Morgan Moses of Flores\u2019 defense. \u201cWhen you get to the line as an offense, you want to be able to play fast. He has a lot of exotic looks and things that you\u2019ve probably never seen before, and sometimes it makes you play a little bit slow. That\u2019s what makes that defense go, and to be able to out there for those two days and to be able to get that has been quality work for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we blocked it up when we got it right,\u201d added Maye. \u201cI think there\u2019s times where they\u2019re going to get us. That\u2019s what he does.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hope in New England is that the lessons learned these two days can set the stage for improved long-term performance. But even considering the difficulties, there were some concrete positives beyond the \u201cvaluable experience\u201d point of view.<\/p>\n
Maye himself, as noted above, had some encouraging moments considering the circumstances \u2014 a point of view shared by his head coach after the first day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s easy to go into blender when you\u2019re seeing a bunch of this stuff and kind of scrambling and turning one less-than-favorable play into a real s\u2014tstorm. I didn\u2019t see that,\u201d Vrabel said on Thursday. \u201cI thought he was able to process. We didn\u2019t execute all the time, but I didn\u2019t see any panic from him. I thought he was able to communicate and get the things that he wanted and then hit some plays because of it. When we blocked him, we were able to make some plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides Maye, the Patriots also received positive contributions from rookies such as TreVeyon Henderson or Efton Chism. On defense, New England\u2019s pass rush \u2014 led by the likes of Christian Barmore and Harold Landry \u2014 proved to be a problem for Minnesota at times.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, however, all of those performances, just like those on the other end of the spectrum, need to be taken with a grain of salt. As wide receiver DeMario Douglas pointed out following Thursday\u2019s session, it\u2019s still practice we are talking about.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be great right now. It\u2019s training camp \u2014 we\u2019re still bonding, getting together and learning each other,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it were in the game, that\u2019s when it\u2019s frustrating. But we\u2019re in practice. I feel like we learn from what we see on tape. We\u2019re going to go to this tape, watch tape, and correct it. This is a practice where you\u2019re not really too much watching film on them the whole week and then playing them. You\u2019re really just watching film on how we practiced and then go and adjust. So, once we go to game week and watch this the whole week, then it\u2019ll become like second nature, like, \u2019Oh, I\u2019ve seen this. He\u2019s doing this, he\u2019s doing this, and then you know.\u2019 It\u2019s tough, but it\u2019s practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, more than anything, that might be the biggest silver lining coming out of those two days at TCO Performance Center in Eagan, MN: the learning potential is immense and should positively impact the Patriots in the long run.<\/p>\n
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