FOXBOROUGH — In hopes of finding some sort of fresh angle in the Patriots-Jaguars matchup, we went back to some of our notes from the joint practices the two teams had this past summer prior to their preseason game at Gillette Stadium. While there’s a danger in trying to read too much into things — as some of the players reminded us, Jalen Ramsey wasn’t even with Jacksonville when the team visited New England this past August — here are a few things that stood out.
1. Malcolm Butler had a really good stretch against the Jags, at least when it came to the practices. The cornerback was involved in a number of plays — in the August 7 practice he came away with a really impressive pick of Blake Bortles in traffic. “One of the sharpest defensive plays of the summer,” I wrote at the time. The next day, Butler also knocked down pass from Bortles that was intended for receiver Arrelious Benn. He also nearly picked off another Bortles ball as part of 11-on-11 goal-line work for Jacksonville. (Bortles would get some revenge a few plays later with a nice deep connection over Butler to Shane Wynn.) There were other instances where we singled out Butler for positive plays. Not sure how much of it was because he saw something in Bortles or if it was just a good stretch for him that summer. But the fact that he showed up so many times in a positive way against the Jags was intriguing, at least as it relates to this weekend.
2. There were multiple instances where Tom Brady and Brandin Cooks showed a chemistry, especially when it came to short-area passing drills. On Aug. 7, we wrote that on multiple occasions in a red-zone passing drill, Cooks was able to shake a defender and get open. And later that same day, there was one of the nicer connections of the summer when Brady found Cooks on a deep ball where the receiver was able to split the safeties and haul in the catch. Following the workout, Greg wrote of Cooks that the entire array of his skills were on “full display against the Jaguars as (he) was sprinting by the defense to the tune of three touchdowns (one was caught with one hand) and another deep pass inside the 5-yard line. Even Jaguars CB A.J. Bouye (who was with the Texans last year) talked about it after practice: Cooks brings a deep element to the Patriots’ offense that it had been lacking.”
Wow @brandincooks #Patscamp pic.twitter.com/PtV0byrDhT
— Mike Clark (@mclark8185) August 7, 2017