FOXBOROUGH — The Patriots start the on-field portion of offseason practices today and the session will be open to the media.
When you're starting a new regime, these are very important — even if they are voluntary. And with a vastly different approach to personnel under Eliot Wolf — rookies often play early and the bosses are not afraid of growing pains — we could get a lot more information as we go through these sessions. Maybe not today, but by the end of minicamp next month.
Anyways, here are the key questions I'm looking to answer over the next month, and not many of them have to do with Drake Maye. Actually, the aspect I'm probably most intrigued by?
The defense.
Am I expecting huge changes? No. But I am anticipating tweaks. This is the first time in almost 25 years that the Patriots could be altering Bill Belichick's scheme. That is fascinating to me. Has Jerod Mayo and some of his teammates (like assistant coach Dont'a Hightower) been sitting on changes they would have made if they had more input?
• Are they going to make the edge guys still set the edge first or will Josh Uche get more of an every-down chance?
• Are they shooting gaps instead of holding two of them?
• Are they still going to be a high-percentage man team now that they are (relatively) healthy?
• Do Mayo and Demarcus Covington care more about the fate of free safety after Devin McCourty than Belichick did? Or are they still going with the interchangeable/by committee thing even though not all of their safeties can truly play free safety?
• Where the heck is Marte Mapu playing? Oh, and Marcus Jones too. (psst, think about moving him to offense - again)
Key questions on offense, aside from the obvious about the quarterbacks:
• Who's playing where on the offensive line? This is huge and has multiple levels in terms of the direction of this offense. The rookies could factor in here early.
• How prominently are the rookies being featured - the Packer way is to push the rookies hard early to see what they can do. I could certainly see Ja'Lynn Polk getting a lot of run by training camp, and perhaps Caeden Wallace.
• What does the scheme look like? Looked pretty old-school West Coast in rookie camp with outside zone and boots. Is that what it's going to be or was that just for the rookies?
• What's going on with free agents like WR KJ Osborn, OT Chuk Okorafor, OG Nick Leverett, TE Austin Hooper, and RB Antonio Gibson?
Other lingering questions:
• Who isn't there?
These are voluntary but telling. I could see Matthew Judon sitting out for a while as his contract needs another tweak. Anyone else?
• Finally, one of the biggest things I look for initially is just the shape that veterans have reported in, especially their size: have they lost or gained weight, are they carrying it well, how is it impacting the way they move? Could they be switching positions? That sort of thing.
With a new approach from Mayo and Wolf, a lot of things could be changing. Or not. Will be interesting to watch and chronicle here.