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Do you remember the feeling the night before the first day of school? That mild anxiety and nervous excitement that sits in your chest as you await what’s to come the following day?
That's exactly how I feel as I type out this column.
Football season is back! NFL training camps are in full swing across the U.S. of A. this week, and the New England Patriots begin theirs on Wednesday.
Here are the top 10 things to keep your eyes out for as the Pats hit the practice fields outside of Gillette Stadium:
10 - Jerod Mayo and Joe Judge’s roles
Jerod Mayo’s employment in Foxborough was in question at the beginning of 2023 when he interviewed for the Panthers vacant head coaching job and the Browns defensive coordinator job.
And then Robert Kraft stepped in, entering mostly unchartered territory with the following email subject line on January 12:
“Patriots to extend Jerod Mayo; Will begin interviewing for an offensive coordinator”
We’ll get to the offensive coordinator portion later, but they made their standing with Mayo clear. They want him in New England long-term.
His title, however, hasn’t changed. At least not yet. While there has yet to be an official announcement from the team, the Patriots updated their website last week with the titles of their 2023 coaching staff. Mayo’s remains “linebackers coach”.
Will he call defensive plays now? Will he coach more than just linebackers? We’ll find out this week.
Similar questions surround Joe Judge.
Judge, who was the center of the great Boston Herald piece this about the dysfunction of the 2022 Patriots, also returns to the staff, but in a different role. He’s been named the “Assistant Head Coach” on the club’s website, and was strangely listed under the Defense.
An interesting development, given that the last time he coached defense was as the linebackers coach for the Division III Birmingham-Southern Panthers in 2008.
Judge was heavily involved with the special teams during New England’s OTA program, so it would be odd to see him end up working with the defense.
Was this a clerical error? Perhaps. Or perhaps there’s more to come.
9 - Contract extensions
The Patriots extended veterans DeVante Parker and Ja’Whaun Bentley last month, rewarding two players who have come to New England, worked hard, and exemplified Belichick’s “Patriots Way”.
So will they make any more of these transactions prior to week one?
This offseason was a critical one for most teams in the NFL as it was the deadline to pick up the fifth-year option attached to their 2020 first-round picks.
While the Patriots didn’t have a first-rounder that season, they did select three high-quality, impact players in Kyle Dugger, Josh Uche, and Mike Onwenu on days two and three, all of which are deserving of a contract extension prior to hitting free agency next March. Something to keep an eye on.
Hunter Henry, who is entering the final year of his deal, is also one to watch as well - especially since the Patriots have neither him nor Mike Gesicki under contract for next season.
8 - The tackle position
One of the many reasons why the Patriots struggled in 2022 was due to their offensive line play… or lack thereof.
Isaiah Wynn, who New England drafted in the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft, ended his tenure in Foxborough as a bust, Trent Brown had one of his "down" years in what has become a roller coaster NFL career, and the Patriots had to piece together the bookends of their line with the likes of Conor McDermott and Marcus Cannon.
They just barely crawled across the finish line of the 2022 season.
They now get a reset. Matt Patricia is out, Adrian Klemm is in, and they also added Calvin Anderson and Riley Reiff in free agency to hopefully fix what was one of their many downfalls from a season ago.
I'll be honest, the operation didn't look great during the off-season program. They'll need Brown to buy back in if they want any chance at success in 2023.
7 - The safety position
We go from bare bones at tackle to a loaded Patriots safety position.
Despite having to work through the loss of Devin McCourty, (a player who was a three-time Super Bowl champion, three-time All-Pro, and finished his career with 907 tackles, 35 interceptions, and a record 12,506 defensive snaps since 2010) New England's safety room is chock full of talent in 2023.
The team returns Kyle Dugger, Adrian Phillips, and Jabrill Peppers from last season while also likely adding Jalen Mills, who re-signed with the Patriots this offseason after originally being released.
Mills started 15 games at safety for the Eagles in 2020, putting 79 total tackles, 1.5 sacks, a forced fumble and an interception.
Their multitude of skillsets will allow them to spin the dial in more ways than one. I'm excited to see how they line up.
6 - Marte Mapu
The Patriots third-round pick is a storyline in himself.
Mapu was the star of New England's offseason program last month, flying around the field looked fast, fluid, instinctual, and like he belonged on an NFL football field.
The former Sacramento State Hornet tore his pectoral muscle while training for the NFL Draft February but said in his post-draft press conference that he’ll be ready “by training camp at the latest”.
Mapu donned a red non-contact jersey throughout OTAs but, if his personal timeline is correct, may be out of it by Wednesday's session.
As he did in college, Mapu will likely play both linebacker and safety for the Patriots and has the ability to become a top chess piece, Belichick’s favorite position, in their already top five defense.
5 - Cornerback room shakeout
Speaking of rookies, the Patriots drafted Christian Gonzalez with the 17th overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft with the idea that he can become the teams next great lockdown cornerback. But how soon will that actually happen?
Gonzalez repped with the first team during the offseason program and showed off his freak athletciscm all Spring. By all accounts, he’ll be a shoe-in for one of the top spots. So who will line up opposite him?
Jack Jones was one, among a few others, who was tasked with this during OTA’s and while his future with the club is potentially still in limbo, Bill Belichick made it clear on Tuesday that the team’s sticking by him, at least for now:
“Jack will be out there,” Belichick said when asked about the second-year defensive back’s arrest last month. “It's a legal situation that I can't comment on that's ongoing."
Jones will likely compete with Jonathan Jones for the second boundary cornerback spot with a rotation of Marcus Jones, and Myles Bryant in the slot. Jalen Mills, while a safety, could be in the mix on the boundary as well.
4 - How dominant can this defense be?
Putting the three above storylines together with New England’s already stout front seven, you can’t help but wonder how dominant this defense can be week in and week out this season.
The Patriots defense a season ago looked really good on paper, allowing just 20.4 points per game, but there was a gigantic caveat to that: they struggled against the leagues crop of high-end quarterbacks. Here’s how that “20.4 points per game” really shot out over their 17-game schedule:
In eight games against Mitch Trubisky, Jared Goff, Jacoby Brissett, Sam Ehlinger, Zach Wilson (x2), Colt McCoy, and Teddy Bridgwater the Patriots allowed just 11 points per game and just 201 passing yards per game.
Meanwhile, in nine games against the likes of Tua Tagovailoa, Lamar Jackson, Aaron Rodgers, Justin Fields, Josh Allen (x2), Kirk Cousins, Derek Carr, and Joe Burrow, they allowed 29 points per game and 255 passing yards per game.
Quite the shift.
The Patriots have Jalen Hurts, Aaron Rodgers, Dak Prescott, Derek Carr, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, and Patrick Mahomes on their schedule this season. Adrian Phillips spoke to this ‘gauntlet’ of quarterbacks with NFL Network:
"You literally cannot take a week off. I mean this is the NFL anyways, you can get beat on any given Sunday, but in the AFC alone, we're just stacked," he said. "We're going in with the mindset that if we're just physical and we do our jobs, win all of our one-on-one matchups, we just go out there and play to the best of our abilities, then we can rock with anybody.”
They sound ready. But can they walk the walk? We’ll see starting this week.
3 - Wide receiver impact/competition
Lets shift back over to offense.
While we’ve now beat the story to a pulp, news flash: the Patriots lost the DeAndre Hopkins sweepstakes. Now what?
They head into 2023 with a wide receiver room of JuJu Smith-Schuster, DeVante Parker, Kendrick Bourne, and Tyquan Thornton among others. Here’s my guess on how they’ll like up in an 11-perssonel look:
X - DeVante Parker
F (slot) - JuJu Smith-Schuster
Z - Kendrick Bourne/Tyquan Thornton
Yes - there’s two players at Z for a reason. Bourne and Thornton will likely be duking it out for the starting Z position over the next several weeks. A quick case for each?
Thornton was a second-round pick for New England in 2022 and shined for the Patriots during last seasons training camp… until he broke his collar bone in his first preseason game and missed the first four games of the season. He’s lightning quick and becomes a mismatch against just about any defensive backfield if he can stay heatlhy, but it’s a big if. Thornton has already missed time this offseason with a soft tissue injury.
Bourne, however, is Mac Jones’ most trusted receiver now that Jakobi Meyers is gone. Despite being in the dog house last season, Jones and Bourne connected on 55 passes for 800 yards and five touchdowns the year prior.
May the best man win.
2 - Mac Jones
When the Patriots drafted Mac Jones with the 15th overall pick in the 2021 draft, he was tasked with the hardest job in NFL history: becoming the heir to the throne of Tom Brady.
In his rookie season he went 10-7, threw for 3,801 yards and 22 touchdowns, and brought New England to the postseason. He even went toe-to-toe with Brady in a 19-17 loss to the Buccaneers.
We all know what happened last year and frankly, I’d love to forget it.
Jones now enters a critical third season in the NFL, with all eyes on him. Will he bounce back? Was last season just too much to handle? With quarterbacks in the NFL getting paid left and right, most recently Justin Herbert on a five-year deal with a max value of over $260 million, Jones will have the opportunity to show his worth this season and not only command his fifth-year option to be picked up, but potentially warrant a second contract.
1 - Bill O’Brien’s impact
The press release mentioned in storyline #10 regarding Jerod Mayo’s status with the team ended with the following sentence:
“In addition, the team will begin interviewing for offensive coordinator candidates beginning next week.”
This search, which included Adrian Klemm, Keenan McCardell, Shawn Jefferson, and Nick Caley, concluded with the hiring of Bill O’Brien on January 24.
O’Brien returns to New England having coached with the team from 2007-2011, and having been their their offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2011. He was then hired as Penn State’s head coach before a return to the NFL to become the Houston Texans head coach from 2014-2020. Since his firing, O’Brien had spent the last two seasons learning under Nick Saban at the University of Alabama as their OC and QBs coach.
He now begins unfinished business in New England.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The Patriots offense in 2022 was a train wreck. Bill Belichick tasked Matt Patricia with running his offense, and he drove the entire thing into the ground. Something 31 out of 32 coaches would be unemployed after doing. Lucky for BB, he’s built up enough of an aura to get a mulligan.
His mulligan, O’Brien, now brings his pre-snap heavy, matchup-driven, high IQ system that allows him to get the best out of his personnel. On paper, it’s a perfect matchup for Mac Jones, who’s cerebral style of football is his super power.
But paper is paper. How it translate to the grass will be, without question, the top storyline of this Patriots season.
A reminder: New England begins practice on Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m. We’ll have you covered there with live coverage at WEEI.com, and WEEI’s Gresh and Fauria will also broadcast live from the practice field. Keep it with us for all of your Patriots training camp updates.
Make sure to follow Mike on Twitter @mikekadlick, and follow @WEEI for the latest up-to-date Patriots and Boston sports news!
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