This is a good thing since Brady is no spring chicken at nearly 39 years old and the four-time Super Bowl victor will have to be replaced in the not too distant future.
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On the first day of training camp for the New England Patriots, quarterback Tom Brady got the most applause, but a lot of eyes were on his backup, Jimmy Garoppolo. “I can’t say for sure because we haven’t really heard from Tom, but I just, you know, it looks like from our vantage point that he’s in a little bit of a funk right now”.
“I was disappointed that he didn’t keep appealing, from a player’s standpoint”, Thomas said Saturday as the Browns got ready for their second practice of training camp, “because it kind of gives the commissioner a little bit more power that maybe was not necessarily already negotiated or settled”. “We play to get out there and get your opportunity, and when it comes, you’ve got to be ready for it”.
“Very excited”, Garoppolo said.
And that means prove enough during your month on the field to make Belichick and the Patriots organization that you are indeed the heir apparent to Brady, not as a future Hall of Famer but as a competent National Football League starter for the Pats. “So he would be suspended Week 5 and we didn’t have to see him”.
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.
Once Brady chose to end his appeal process and accept his four-game Deflategate suspension, Garoppolo moved to the top of the depth chart.
It was unclear if Brady’s frustration was a result of him not getting the throw over the paddle, or the fact the paddle was aggressively used in a way that might have been hard for a defender to replicate in a game.
The Patriots announced a crowd of 6,979 fans for Friday’s practice, conducted mostly in a light rain. Earlier, a familiar chant of “Brady!”
A slew of fans gathered on the sidelines as Brady went around signing autographs at Patriots camp.
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One woman was spotted wearing a T-shirt with the words, “GOODELL IS A (rhymes with woosh)”.
