Operationally, there will not be much of a difference between the last few weeks and the three days that lie ahead for the New England Patriots. That said, mandatory minicamp is still a change compared to organized team activities: the Patriots will wrap their offseason workout program up by welcoming their entire roster to Gillette Stadium.
While not every player will participate in the three practice sessions on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — linebacker Jahlani Tavai will be out with a calf injury, for example — every healthy player will be accounted for. This, in turn, gives the team of head coach Mike Vrabel an opportunity to finish the spring strongly and build momentum heading into summer break.
What else is there to accomplish, though, given that there will be no full pads or live tackling? Quite a bit, actually.
Fine-tune the operation
The NFL-NFLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement restricts what teams are allowed to do during spring, and that includes mandatory minicamp. Accordingly, evaluating players is not an easy task, particularly at contact-heavy positions such as the offensive or defensive lines.
That does not mean that there won’t be opportunities for the coaching staff to take a look at where certain groups or individual players stand particularly from an operational perspective. Head coach Mike Vrabel said so himself last month ahead of OTAs.
“Maybe the running backs you can evaluate. Are they picking up the right person in protection? Not necessarily sure if they’re going to be able to block them, but are they getting to the right guy?” he asked.
“Quarterbacks, operation, the urgency in which we practice are things that are important. Our tempo, the way that we finish plays, our effort and continue to build the identity. Are we taking care of the football? Are we running with it in the open field? Things like that.”
Before things get serious in training camp, this is the final change for players to leave a positive impression in that regard.
Continue the install
The offseason program is for learning, acclimating, and building a foundation for the season to come. The three minicamp workouts, just like the nine previous OTA sessions, therefore allow for further and more intense implementation of the scheme on both sides of the ball.
Given the coaching turnover they underwent on offense and defense this offseason, the Patriots will need every chance they can get to do just that. Granted, some of the players on the roster have experience working under new OC Josh McDaniels and new DC Terrell Williams, but a significant portion of the roster does not.
With the full team available, now is the perfect time to continue the process of installing the scheme and putting it into practice right away.
Experiment
As opposed to training camp, which focuses primarily on competition rather than scheme implementation, minicamp and organized team activities allow players and coaches more wiggle room to experiment. Be it related to personnel packages, training methods, play calls or techniques, now is the time to try to get comfortable within the system both on and off the field.
Accordingly, not every bad rep is necessarily just that; whereas it might have a negative impact on a player’s chances at making the team or regular rotation in August, spring practices are an opportunity to see what does and doesn’t work. Josh McDaniels said as much last week.
“Mistakes are opportunities, that’s how I look at them at this time of the year. If we make them now, you hope that we learn from them, grow from them, and then eventually don’t make them when they start keeping score,” he explained.
“Everybody’s going out there trying the best they can with their opportunities. Everybody’s getting reps right now, which is a great part about this time of the year. Go out there and make some good plays, and if we make a mistake, we learn from it and get better.”
Build chemistry
The Patriots put a premium on leadership this offseason, but it still takes time to turn the individual players into a collective. The spring program allows teams to try to do just that, with minicamp as a culmination of those efforts: with the full roster at hand, team building will intensify.
That is something Mike Vrabel’s former coach, Bill Belichick, actively fostered. It would therefore not be a surprise if Vrabel himself set up a field trip of sorts at some point over the next three days.
The process of building chemistry does not stop with the players, though. The members of Vrabel’s coaching staff also need to get used to each other in their first year together.
“We’re a first-year staff together, and we’re all just grinding away trying to make sure that we’re ready each day. They’ve done a tremendous job with their position groups, and I really enjoy the process,” said Josh McDaniels last week.
“When you take a lot of people from different backgrounds, they have such good experience and wisdom doing things that you don’t, it makes a lot of sense for me to learn from them and what they can teach me. That stuff is going to be used to help our team produce more points, more yards, more first downs, and hopefully good plays. There’s a good chunk of it that I’m learning and adapting too.”
Stay healthy
Even though the absence of full contact limits the risk for players during offseason workouts, injuries ranging from soft-tissue ailments to ligament tears can still happen at this time of the year. Naturally, a team’s depth can therefore be challenged before a single down of competitive football is even played.
The Patriots know this as well, with the aforementioned Jahlani Tavai suffering a calf injury last week that is expected to keep him out until training camp — a comparatively minor issue, but still far from ideal. With three more practices to go before the summer break, the team will have to hope for the best while also creating an environment that allows for proper post-practice recovery.