The Patriots have only been at the Gillette Stadium facility once in the last 11 days because of a few COVID-19 tests.
New England was only inside the building once -- last Saturday -- since playing the Chiefs and now preparing (for a second time) the Broncos this coming Sunday after last week's game was rescheduled.
Due to the lack of in-person coaching, a reasonable thought could be players aren't getting the same coaching that they are used to, but speaking via video conference Tuesday, Bill Belichick said players are actually getting more individualized coaching because of the virtual nature of the last week.
"We try to be thorough in the breakdown of our plays and the fundamentals that we use on each play and communicate those to the players," he said. "Some of it’s been more virtually, some of it’s been in position meetings, that kind of thing. I’d say we’ve probably had overall more individual meetings this year than we’ve had historically in the past to try to separate and distance, but the good part of that is it allows more individual and direct communication between the coach and his players. The downside of that is there’s a little bit less overall communication and total understanding of everything that’s happening because you don’t hear other coaches tell the players beside you or in front of you or behind you what they’re doing and where it all kind of ties together. You rely on your position coach to do that. Our coaches do a good job of that, though. I’d say the individual coaching might even be more than what it’s been in the past. I’d say the overall team meetings and team coaching or team group work – whether it’s film or installation or game planning, game plan adjustments and so forth – probably a little bit less than in the past. Again, that’s kind of the trade off, but that’s what we’ve tried to do.
"We’ve tried to make the meetings smaller, which are definitely better on the virtual end of it. When we had those in the spring, but carrying over into training camp and the season, there’s been probably a little more of that than what there’s been in the past in terms of the in-person meetings. I think the individual corrections are definitely getting made, and like I said, maybe a little more than in the past. I’d say bringing together some of the overall things, we could use a little more time on that, but we just try to handle them with the way that we’re set up so that we’re not spending more time together than we feel like is really necessary. But, it’s a balance. It’s a great question. It’s a balance and something we’ve talked about. Maybe we have the right mix, maybe we don’t, but that’s something we’re aware of and we want to try to use our time as efficiently as we can to get everything covered."
The Patriots are scheduled to return to the facility and practice on Wednesday.
