FOXBOROUGH — The Patriots' offense had a fairly rough practice on Tuesday, the second session of mandatory minicamp. Didn't matter if it was the starters or the backups, it was tough to find open receivers and there was an uptick in pressures and sacks.
There's two ways you can look at it. The first is that the offense is going through some growing pains in a new-ish system with coordinator Bill O'Brien, which has likely been exacerbated by Bill Belichick leaving that side of the ball short at offensive tackle and receiver — two fairly important spots (more on that later) — at least for June. Camp could be different.
The other side of the coin is much more positive: the Patriots' defense, which has put up some great stats and analytics in recent years, is light years ahead of the offense and may be even better this season — if the personnel continues to be healthy and improved. The defense has a plethora of tools in the toolbox, and Steve Belichick is tinkering like never before. That would be rough on any offense.
"Everyone is trying out new things," Mac Jones said Monday. "They are allowed to try whatever they want, and we are allowed to do whatever we want. It goes back to following your rules and identifying where (the pressure) is coming from. It's hard because they throw the kitchen sink at you.
"They do a great job. It's kind of fun too. You learn something every day because you might not have seen it, or Steve is in there all night drawing something up that looks like something you saw, but then it's something else. Shout out to those guys for just doing a great job."
During Tuesday's session, the experience on defense really stood out. They have so many players that can do different things, and they haven't really come close to tapping into what youngsters Christian Gonzalez, Jack Jones, Marte Mapu and Joshuah Bledsoe can fully do.
The Patriots, of course, are most versatile at safety where just about every can play anywhere from edge (Kyle Dugger and Mapu on Tuesday) to linebacker and deep free safety between Adrian Phillips, Jalen Mills, Dugger, Jabrill Peppers, Bledsoe and Mapu — not mention another corner, Jonathan Jones, who has played safety before.
"I think that's just a credit to everyone's versatility," Peppers said Tuesday. "We've all played in the deep part of the field, covering man and man, whether it's a tight end or running backs, we gotta replace on a blitz from the corners, real comfortable in the box, know how to read the timing, things like that. Then you add in a guy like Marte, who you don't know if he's at back or safety now ...
"We're talking pre-snap, it might look one way to the offense. We run the same play, but we just flipped two guys, now it looks like a completely different defense. So just kind of keep spinning the dial. We have a lot of continuity going on. You know, we only lost one player, a great player (Devin McCourty), you know, but we all know each other pretty well, you know what I mean? So we just kind of try to build off that and take the next steps."
Peppers came to the Patriots last year off ACL surgery and slowly developed into a good role player with some explosiveness and aggression. Belichick said this is a different Peppers this year.
"Oh my god, yeah," Belchick said. "He’s a much different player now than he was last year at this time or even in training camp. A full year after the injury, a lot of confidence in the communication, the system, his assignments. He’s playing fast, aggressive, helping out his teammates. Last year he was trying to learn things, now he's helping out his teammates, anticipating, making calls or adjustments that maybe help him or possibly help his teammate be in a better position to defend a certain play or type of play. Yeah, he's been great. He’s way ahead of where he was last year."
With all the versatility on defense, the Patriots are tossing out some really nice looks.
"They're looking good," said receiver DeVante Parker, who had one of his best days of practice. "They do a great job of disguising their defense. They are very good at that. It's just trouble for us, makes it harder on us. But being able to see that every day, just makes it even better. ... They're a little more advanced with everything they're doing."
Peppers thinks the defense is way more advanced with looks for this time of year, but a veteran like Judon disagreed a bit.
"I think, you know, not trying to backdoor Pepp but with our coaches and with the players that we have, it's not unusual," Judon said. "We have unicorns, for real. We got a guy like Dugger that can play on the line of scrimmage at linebacker depth, he can play at corner, but he's a safety. And then we drafted players that can play from nose to middle linebacker. We've got a big range of corners, to corners like Marcus Jones, where he played three, four different positions on each different unit offense, defense and special teams. So with that, it's not unusual.
"You gotta get those players on the field. Our coaches do a great job of finding any way to get those players in different packages on the field, and put them in situations where they can compete, and they can win. And that's what they're doing. So it's not unusual for that to happen. But it's unusual for us to have these type of players like that. And so if we can keep everybody here, keep everybody healthy, you know, it's training camp, we have a lot of players. But when we cut everything down, keep everybody healthy and keep everybody rolling. It's gonna be easy for us to match up with any offensive personnel."
Just like everyone else, Judon has come away impressed with Mapu and what he can potentially bring, but the star of the Patriots' defense cautioned everyone that there is a long way for everyone to go.
"I think just his speed and how big he is," Judon said of Mapu. "He runs like a safety — he runs like a free safety. But he stands like a linebacker, or an edge player. So that's another guy that can play all three levels.
"I think, you know, you have people like that here all the time. You have people like Jamie Collins or (Dont'a) Hightower and stuff like that. It's just new names. It's just new names in that situation. And I'm not saying they're gonna be as good as those guys or leave a legacy as those guys, but they have a chance. And that's all you kind of ask for. And so with 'Te when he comes out here, when he puts on those pads, he's gonna have to show it. It's easy to do it in shorts and shirts, but I think he has the ability and uniqueness to be a really good player."