The New England Patriots have finished up their organized team activities and mandatory minicamp sessions and now have a long break before they have to return to the practice fields again in late July for training camp.
However, at one of their OTA sessions, head coach Jerod Mayo welcomed a special guest - former Patriots wide receiver and three-time Super Bowl champion Julian Edelman. And, while speaking with FOX Sport's Colin Cowherd this week, Edelman shared exactly what he saw from his old team.
"I saw a defense that was flying around," Edelman said. "I saw a lot of communication on the defense. I saw Jacoby Brissett looking confident, calling and communicating plays very well. And, that's what you want to see in organized team activities. You want to see execution, operation, being able to get a play call in with a coach out of the huddle and communicating player-to-player, running plays on not just first down, second down, third down, but calling plays like it's a game. They were doing a lot of that.
"It was really cool to see the new kickoff rule, and them practicing that and the strategy of what they're going to be doing... I was impressed. Drake Maye had some good throws... He had it pretty dialed the day that I was there. I saw him make an end-line in-cut in traffic, which is a tough play in the red area... That was like really cool to see, but you also can't take too much with OTAs because everything's kind of scripted... The communication was very good, from what I saw, but I didn't know they were doing it behind the scenes. They could've been prompting that."
New England has a lot of questions going into this season, and making sure they have clear and concise communication is the first step in improving and being a real, competitive football during the season. Brissett should be able to do that at this point in his career and with familiarity with the system, and Maye will need to learn it.
When they have their first real training camp sessions and their joint practice against the Philadelphia Eagles, those will be the real barometers to see where Mayo's team is.
