FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Quick-hit thoughts and notes around the New England Patriots and NFL: 1.
Saturday practice: The Patriots will be making history this week as they begin what they hope will be a return trip to the Super Bowl. Since the team moved its training camp to Gillette Stadium 24 years ago, never before has the first practice been on a Saturday.
That is traditionally the day that draws the largest crowds, which have swelled to as many as 10,000-plus surrounding the two fields behind Gillette Stadium as the standing room only crowd sometimes spills onto the ramps overlooking the action. So buckle up for Saturday as quarterback Drake Maye & Co.
take the field for the first time (10:30 a.m. ET).
"We're back. We're back to getting into football phase," Maye said Thursday at his FlexWork Sports camp in Auburn, Massachusetts.
"I think just the hunger -- of wanting to get back [to the Super Bowl]. Felt like you were close but not there yet.
It's time to go back to work." The first practice was Wednesday each of the past five summers. Prior to that, it was six straight years of Thursdays.
Midweek starts still led to significant crowds, but there is nothing like the weekend if the weather cooperates. The range of training camp attendance last year was around 3,000 to just more than 12,000 -- with the average between 4,000 to 5,000.
"My rookie season [2014], walking out to practice for the first time, you see all those people in the stands and I was like, 'I didn't even know they did this for training camp!'" recalled running back James White, the three-time Super Bowl champion. "Then on a Saturday or Sunday, there's even more there because people are potentially off work.
It makes it a really cool atmosphere." Saturday marks the first of 13 open Patriots training camp practices this year. Admission and parking are free.
Players sign autographs after practice (usually a specific position group each day), although not everyone is assured of receiving one. Highlights of this year's camp schedule include a "Pawtriots" dog adoption on opening day, and joint practices with the Indianapolis Colts (Thursday, Aug.
11, 10:15 a.m. ET) and Philadelphia Eagles (Wednesday/Thursday Aug.
19-20, 10:15 a.m. ET).
The Patriots start camp earlier this year because their first regular-season game is the NFL's opener -- a Super Bowl rematch Wednesday, Sept. 9, at the Seattle Seahawks .
Coaches are scheduled to be back in the office Monday, rookies/QBs and select others are scheduled to be in Wednesday and the rest of the players report Friday. "The best thing about training camp is being around the guys; it is one of the best times for bonding," Maye said.
"We spend a lot of time together. I think to get used to some new pieces; [I'm] looking forward to getting back to it." Pro Football Hall of Famer Andre Tippett, who starred for the Patriots from 1982 to 1993 and now serves as the team's executive director of community relations, remembers when training camp meant packing up and moving to Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, for a month.
The Patriots held their training camp at Bryant for 27 years, and in those days, there were double-session practices with a full-padded session in the morning and then a half-shell workout in the afternoon. "There were roped-off fields where people would stand and observe and it looked like a few hundred, maybe a thousand.
That would be the extent of it for me," Tippett said of the fans. Asked what he would tell someone who told him someday there might be practice with more than 10,000 watching him at training camp, Tippett laughed.
"I would have probably told you that you're crazy. No way that would happen," he said.
"But the crowds have been unbelievable the last 24 years [at Gillette], and you see every age group ... some coming for the first time, others for the 50th.
I know some people plan their vacations around it." White, the former running back who is in his first season as a high school football head coach at Benet Academy in Lisle, Illinois, said that creates a unique environment for players. One of White's players, a Patriots fan, is planning to attend this year.
"It makes practice fun," White said. "Obviously if you do something bad, you end up on social media and people reporting it.
But if you catch a pass, everyone is cheering. The fans add a boost; whenever you potentially feel like you're about to drift, they keep you into it.
"On offense, our sideline was always closest to t