Patriots training camp: Gronk dominates as Pats ease into summer

FOXBORO – The Patriots eased their way into the summer with a lighter pace on the first day of training camp. The team was in shells and won’t put on the pads until Saturday. For now, the Pats were getting back to the basics as players get ready for a new season.

"It’s always good to get going, good to get out on the field," Bill Belichick said. "We’re in a process here where we go from non-padded to padded and so forth. But, we’ve laid out a schedule [...]

FOXBORO – The Patriots eased their way into the summer with a lighter pace on the first day of training camp. The team was in shells and won’t put on the pads until Saturday. For now, the Pats were getting back to the basics as players get ready for a new season.

“It’s always good to get going, good to get out on the field,” Bill Belichick said. “We’re in a process here where we go from non-padded to padded and so forth. But, we’ve laid out a schedule to do things the way that we feel like is most productive for us to do them and just take it day-by-day. [We have] a long way to go, one step at a time, a lot of work to do, but always good to get underway and get started. So, we’ll just take it one day at a time.”

The Patriots were without a handful of players at the start of training camp. The most notable was Malcolm Mitchell as the receiver was the only player to not make an appearance on the practice field. Matthew Slater, Nate Ebner, Jonathan Jones, Cyrus Jones and Kenny Britt open up camp on the physically unable to perform list. They were at practice, but not in jerseys and worked out on the lower field. The same went for Brandon Bolden and Darren Andrews as both are on the non-football injury list.

Tom Brady once again looked like Tom Brady – at least when full-team drills started. The soon-to-be 41-year-old threw an interception to Elandon Roberts during an early 4-on-4 period. Brady got into a groove during 11-on-11 drills and finished 11-of-15 on the day.

Brian Hoyer rebounded after a sloppy start to go 11/17 and Danny Etling received a lighter load and went 4/5 in 11-on-11s.

Rob Gronkowski had a fantastic day. The tight end was dominant as he hauled in four touchdown catches – three from Brady and another from Hoyer.

Brady’s offensive line had a constant look on the first day with Trent Brown, Joe Thuney, David Andrews, Shaq Mason and Marcus Cannon. Rookie Isaiah Wynn backed up Brown at left tackle. Fellow rookie Sony Michel also saw reps with Brady and the offense throughout practice.

The Patriots defense had a nice showing on Thursday. The unit finished with 10 pass deflections. Eric Rowe and Kyle Van Noy led the way with two each. Stephon Gilmore, Ryan Lewis, Ja’Whaun Bentley, Keion Crossen, Deatrich Wise and Patrick Chung all broke up passes as well.

The Patriots defense had a similar look to OTAs with Trey Flowers, Lawrence Guy, Danny Shelton and Adrian Clayborn on the defensive line. Dont’a Hightower and Elandon Roberts saw the bulk of the action at linebacker. The secondary was comprised of Devin McCourty, Chung, Duron Harmon, Gilmore and Rowe. Jason McCourty also took reps with that group.