Patriots second-round receiver Tyquan Thornton knows how he looks to people: a scrawny 181-pounder with thin arms, legs, wrists, and shoulders swimming awkwardly in an oversized No. 51 practice jersey.
"It's kinda big on me right now," he said with a laugh. "But I'm gonna rock it."
More importantly, he knows he has a ways to go to be ready to play in the NFL as a rookie, both mentally, technique-wise, and physically.
He certainly doesn't look like, say, DeVante Parker, who looks in tremendous shape so far at Patriots camp and has the body of someone who's been in NFL weight rooms for several years.
But neither Thornton or the Patriots seem to be putting much pressure on him to change himself just yet -- at least, not in the way everyone expects to see.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say getting bigger, I’d just say getting stronger,” Thornton said of his goals for this season. “Putting the speed with having strength.”
Though Thornton added he's been eating more to help boost his weight, he also said the Patriots don't have a specific weight goal in mind for him this year.
So as much focus has been externally placed on putting some meat on his bones, as teammate Kendrick Bourne alluded to last week, the Patriots seem willing to let Thornton hone in on strength training at his current weight than bulking him up for his rookie season.
“It’s a process. Coming in every day just trying to work and get better. Making strides each and every day,” he said when asked how he plans to work on his body going forward. “This is my body type. This is my frame. I don’t see myself getting to 225 pounds. Been thin all my life. Just getting stronger in the weight room, building more muscle so I can have that fast-twitch.”
While this could be seen as a sign that the Patriots could essentially redshirt Thornton until he gets bigger, which might well be true, it also might have a more practical reason in the short term. Without knowing how simply trying to add more weight to his frame would affect his speed and explosiveness -- his greatest attributes -- simply telling Thornton to pack on pounds might not be wise at this stage in his career.
Also, perhaps Thornton, as he suggests, is just naturally small and struggles to keep weight on regardless. Though his frame might be able to fill out more, he'll likely never touch 200 pounds (nor should he necessarily).
In the meantime, preparing his body to take the limited pounding the Patriots will ask it to handle this season and saving the significant work for the next few seasons feels like a prudent decision. The only question is how much that approach will affect the second-round pick's contributions in 2022.
