Phil Perry and Greg Bedard join Arbella Early Edition with Trenni to discuss the events that took place during the Patriots’ preseason game vs. the Packers, Isaiah Bolden’s injury, and the decision to cancel joint practice with the Titans.
GREEN BAY, Wisc. -- The most positive thing coming out of Saturday night was this tweet Sunday morning from Isaiah Bolden.
That Bolden is out of the hospital and returning to Foxboro after the chilling scene in the fourth quarter of Patriots-Packers is the lede to the story of the Patriots' very long stay in Green Bay.
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But there’s a lot more to chew on from the six-day junket, including the Patriots' decision to cancel their joint practices with Tennessee on Tuesday and Wednesday.
From the team’s statement:
Due to the circumstances surrounding the abrupt and unexpected ending to last night’s game, the Patriots will return to Foxborough today. The joint practices that were scheduled with the Tennessee Titans on Tuesday and Wednesday are cancelled. The team will train in Foxborough this week and fly to Nashville on Thursday for Friday night’s game.
The Bolden injury was perhaps emblematic of the cold cost-benefit equation football demands at every level. "How much and how hard do we practice this intensely physical and emotional game before we’ve taken so many reps that we are courting the likelihood of something bad happening eventually?"
As Bill Belichick pointed out Friday morning, the team took upwards of 200 competitive snaps on Wednesday and Thursday against an opponent in full pads. A flat practice on Wednesday seemed to lead directly to the Patriots coming out Thursday with a greater sense of urgency and aggression. Which led to the Packers responding after plays.
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There were a half-dozen scuffles Thursday. There was another in pregame Saturday. There was constant jawing and over-the-top, full-team celebrating in the face of Green Bay when things went well at practice.
Watching 90 guys jump around in a huge scrum while Packers players tried to get through, I couldn’t help but think that a Mike Vrabel-coached team would not let that stand.
Titans-Patriots is a rivalry. The Patriots don’t really do finesse football. The Titans definitely don’t. It would have been a recipe for over-the-top practice emotion OR a request by both coaches that their teams go easy. Frankly, the Patriots defense is playing right now with an edge and intensity I haven’t seen in a while. I don’t know if Belichick would want to ask them to rein it in.
We’ll hear from Belichick on Monday morning, but there are no doubt other factors. The entire organization on the road for 12 days in the summer? That’s with 90 players, not the 60 or so who travel when the Patriots do regular-season road trips. And they’re going to Germany in three months and have one of the league’s toughest schedules.
A million degrees in Nashville after a punishing week in Green Bay? The chance to have your own training and treatment at home in Foxboro? And show compassion to players who saw what happened with Bolden last night and have to process that? Not just individually but with their loved ones -- parents, partners and children in some cases for veteran players?
Bill Belichick ushered in the era of the joint practice. This summer has seen teams begin to tweak how they approach them and whether two days of workouts is one too many.
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Jets coach Robert Saleh has spoken about the diminishing returns of two joint practices (one team gets its ass kicked on Day 1 and comes back agitated on Day 2, as we just saw here). Packers coach Matt LaFleur weighed in Saturday night.
Asked if the practice scraps during the week might make him limit future joint practices to one day, LaFleur said, "Potentially. We have a long time to kind of mull that over, but you know, I see some benefit in only having one.
"I thought we had really good work with Cincinnati when we did that. We’ve had two practices with teams in the past, and haven’t had... like when the Jets were here, we didn’t have any problems and I don’t believe we had any problems last year with New Orleans. So, I think you can. I think it’s just all just circumstantial in the situation. We’ll have plenty of time to think about that moving forward."
LaFleur was concerned enough about the tenor of the week that he actually went over to the mass of Patriots players as Bolden was being taken from the field and asked for everything to remain civil on the field after the game’s suspension.
LaFleur explained his reason for doing so, saying, "It was a pretty chippy week all in all, and it kind of got escalated in the pregame a little bit. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn’t going to be any problems postgame and the respect that we have for each other and just, let’s get out of here and go home."
As LaFleur spoke, an animated Jabrill Peppers could be seen shouting back to LaFleur before Peppers turned and walked back to the Patriots sideline.
So, yeah. The Patriots are already running hot. Cooling off in Foxboro isn’t a bad idea.
