“But in the meantime, we have to prioritize the first part of the schedule and that will be to get Jimmy ready to go”, Belichick said Wednesday.
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“Our priority now is to get Jimmy (Garoppolo) ready for the start of the season, the Arizona game”, Belichick said, per NFL.com. Four-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady will forever be the face of the Patriots’ franchise, but the mug of the moment when it comes to running the offense belongs to Garoppolo.
Brady, 38, was suspended four games over a conspiracy to deflate footballs. Belichick’s response is not an indictment on Garoppolo, but an ode to Brady’s greatness.
The NFL is only a few days into training camp, and Bill Belichick is already annoyed at the media. Though conventional wisdom says Garoppolo, 24, should receive most of the practice time with the first unit, Brady will also have to get himself acclimated with newcomers Martellus Bennett and Chris Hogan. “No one’s going to care come Week One or Week Two, ‘Hey, you won 10 games a year ago, so we should be anxious about you.’ You should worry about us because of the work we put in in spring and August”.
Unlike Garoppolo, who has a full training camp to prepare, Cassel was thrust into service after Brady tore up his left knee in the season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs. And stalwarts like Hightower, Jamie Collins (who’s on the edge of superstardom) and Rob Ninkovich (with 188 straight games played) are all back to help bring heat off the edge.
“You don’t get many opportunities in this league”, Garoppolo said Thursday.
Given his crisp performances last season – and how sharply, quickly and effortlessly he completed pinpoint passes Thursday throughout New England’s first training-camp practice – no one is expecting the Pats offence to take any steps backward in 2016, despite having such an old geezer at the helm.
Then Brady returns in Week 5 against the Browns – and, according to Belichick, not a moment later. “We talk every day”.
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“The offense definitely evolved as we went on, and the coaches started to have more confidence in my ability to manage and handle the offense”. “It has been a challenging 18 months and I have made the hard decision to no longer proceed with the legal process”. But even if he plays well, it doesn’t sound as if he has any shot at replacing Brady. “He spins it really well and has a really quick release, but the one glaring thing that I think is going to be different is that he is going to be a little more mobile”, Lindley said.
