PATRIOTS NOTEBOOK: Belichick admits this year’s approach to camp has been different

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick says the lack of a joint practice with an opponent prior to the preseason opener has altered his approach to training camp this summer.

FOXBORO – The pace has been noticeably slower, the workload often lighter.

Yes, Bill Belichick admitted on Tuesday, he’s taken a different approach to his 19th training camp as head coach of the Patriots.

The change, he says, is due to the fact that the team didn’t have a joint practice session with its opponent heading into its preseason opener.

“That’s exactly what it is,” said Belichick. “When you’re going up against a team like yesterday and today, which we would’ve done last year, then you have to put a lot of things in ahead of that, change the installation schedule and the pattern and so forth.”

Last year, the Patriots hosted the Jacksonville Jaguars in Foxboro prior to the teams’ Aug.10 preseason opener at Gillette Stadium, then they traveled to The Greenbrier in West Virginia the next week to work with the Texans prior to the teams’ Aug. 19 date in Houston. The previous year, they hosted the New Orleans Saints and the Chicago Bears in Foxboro prior to each of their first two preseason games.

The Patriots will play host to the Washington Redskins at Gillette in this year’s preseason opener at 7:30 on Thursday night.

“I’m not saying one’s good or bad, they’re just different (ways of doing things); and we’re on an absolutely different pace 100 percent and there’s some advantages to that and there’s certain advantages to working against a different opponent,” said Belichick. “So we’ll take the opportunities we have and try to make the most of it, but 100 percent that’s the case.”

After two days away from the practice field, the team returned to work behind Gillette on a hot, humid summer’s day.

Asked how the team would deal with the extreme conditions, the coach noted that all kinds of weather, no doubt, lies ahead over the course of the upcoming season.

“Whatever it is out there we’ll play through it,” said Belichick, “so if it’s hot, cold, windy, still, sunny, cloudy, rainy, we’re going to get all of ’em sooner or later, so just work through.”

Reinforcements

Safety Nate Ebner and cornerbacks Cyrus Jones and Jonathan Jones, all of whom started camp on the physically unable to perform list, were in full pads for Tuesday’s practice.

Mitchell gave it his all

It wasn’t for lack of effort.

Belichick said that wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell, who was waived by the team on Monday, “did everything he could” to return to the team from the knee problems that have followed him since his college days at Georgia.

Just two years ago, Mitchell appeared to have a bright future in New England.

A fourth-round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, the Georgia product caught 32 passes for 401 yards and four touchdowns in 14 games (six starts) his rookie year with the Patriots, capping off his season by contributing six receptions for 70 yards to the team’s 34-28 overtime win over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI.

But that was the last anyone’s seen of Mitchell on the playing field.

Since then, the 6-foot-1, 200-pounder has been sidelined by the knee problems that hampered him in college, as he spent the 2017 season on the injured reserve list and was unable to participate in a single practice with the team in camp this summer.

“It’s unfortunate that didn’t work out,” said Belichick, “but I don’t know how he could have put any more into it than he did.”

The student taught the teacher

Belichick said he had “a very special relationship” with Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Randy Moss.

“I learned a lot from Randy,” said Belichick. “Randy had a big impact on me as a coach. He taught me the game from a perspective that I had never really seen before or understood before and I’ll always be grateful to him for doing that.”

With the players off on Sunday, Belichick had an eventful weekend, flying out to Canton, Ohio, with team owner Robert Kraft to attend Moss’ induction on Saturday night and joining his girlfriend Linda Holliday in Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski’s private box at Fenway Park as the team completed a four-game sweep of the New York Yankees with a dramatic 5-4 victory in 10 innings on Sunday night.

Asked where it ranked on his list of weekends in recent years, Belichick acknowledged “it was good” but added “I wouldn’t put it up there with some of the championships that we’ve won. That’s stretching it a little bit.”