Getty New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick
The New England Patriots preseason hasn’t been a good one but Bill Belichick doesn’t appear to be too concerned.
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New England went 1-2 in the preseason. With poor discipline in joint practices and rough performances from starters in the warm-up games, some fans are starting to wonder if the team will be able to turn it around once the regular season starts.
But Belichick isn’t pressing the panic button.
“Preseason is preseason,” Belichick said. “Preseason is about developing your team for the season and evaluating the players. If you look at the playtime in our games, and any other games, I don’t know don’t think Las Vegas played 30 players, I don’t think Carolina, it must have been 30 players that didn’t play in their game [against us]. That’s not really what preseason is about. Preseason is about evaluating the players that you do play and taking the practice time — in joint practices or whatever time you have — to prepare your team for the regular season. Where everybody is on that, we’ll see after five-six weeks of the regular season. That’s when we’ll know.”
In general, the head coach doesn’t believe preseason games are a real big indicator of what kind of team he will have in an upcoming season.
“I don’t think preseason games are a real big indicator of what the team is or isn’t, one way or the other. That’s not about us, it’s about the NFL. But you get a great chance to evaluate players and I think that will be the focus this week of the 1,000 or so transactions that take place across the league. Is there a way you can improve your team? Does somebody want to improve their team from one of your players? And how it all fits together. You can’t have depth everywhere, so you have to choose what positions you want to have depth at on the roster. What positions you want to have depth on the practice squad, assuming you can get all the players you want — which usually you can’t. So that causes some other adjustments. That’s kind of what this week is about — setting your roster, figuring out how you want to try to play the season, and then there will be a lot of adjustments along the way. But you have to start somewhere.”
When Will Belichick Know Where the Patriots Are?
Later on Monday, Belichick met with the media and discussed when he thinks he can get a sense of what his team is capable of.
“I don’t think you really know where your team is until mid-season, mid-October when you’ve played five, six, seven games.”
Patriots Injury Update: Tyquan Thornton out 6-8 Weeks
The rookie wide receiver was making a name for himself with an impressive training camp but an upper-body injury will have Thornton sidelined for half of the season.
Thornton recently underwent surgery to repair a fractured clavicle and the timetable for return is 6-8 weeks according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.
With the surgery taking place on August 22, the earliest that Thornton could return is New England’s Week 5 matchup against the Detroit Lions.