In a general summer in the NFL, the New England Patriots would have played their first preseason game last week. They had completed at least a series of joint educational sessions, an almost annual staple for Bill Belichick’s club, and may be prepared for a second.
But, of course, this is a general summer.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the cancellation of the 2020 pre-season. Joint practices are also prohibited because groups restrict their interactions before week 1. Belichick compared to this new setup with the way school football groups prepare for their seasons. On Monday, the Patriots head coach explained how his team will compensate for the lack of pre-season competition.
“We’ll have to create them,” Belichick said before the Patriots took the box for their first padded practice at the camp. “As we arrive at the camp at other times, depending on what we are prepared for, what we have installed, the conditions for which we are prepared, then we will have to create those conditions, practice them opposite us or practice them opposite us, a simulated opponent.
“When we paint in opposition to ourselves, we do what we do, but maybe that’s not what everyone does, so we believe that. There are other tactics to paint on those situations, but at the end of the day, we’ll have to go through there and make them opposite to us.”
It remains to be noted precisely how these conditions will look, however, they may consist of an attack by the reconnaissance team or a defense that executes, for example, the Dolphins’ plan than the Patriots’ plan. The first game of the New England season against Miami on September 13 will be the first chance for players to hit another team since January 4, when the Tennessee Titans ended the Patriots wilds campaign in 2019.
Coaches can also present more live drills to prepare players for the speed and physique of the normal season.
“That was one of the benefits of education in front of some other team,” Belichick said. “When we weren’t educating with some other team, it was the same situation. Although there have been pre-season matches, the truth is that in the absence of a minute, the players who are going to do that in the normal season were not in the box anyway for this situation.
“So without the unusual practices – that, again, we’ve had, no – we have to create those conditions ourselves, train and compare them, as well as everything that’s going on with them. That’s where we are this year.”