« July 2007 | Main | September 2007 »
Walpole's little league team won't arrive back home from the Little League World Series until tomorrow afternoon, so the big deal in town tonight was Live Coverage's performance at the town common. They played a two hour set of all your favorite songs and gained some new fans in the process.
I spotted this trio walking down a dirt road underneath some power lines this afternoon. Actually, they were in the middle of the road blocking traffic first, but they moved out of the way of the cars fairly fast. A fourth turkey flew over my head as I was taking photos of these three.
Highlights From Training Camp 2007
I know what you're thinking. This is way too early for a greatest hits package... the regular season hasn't even started yet.
If you were into the grunge movement of the early 90's, you'll remember the Red Hot Chili Peppers album, "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" which was the first time most people had heard of the band. Then a year later they released a greatest hits album and everyone was saying "what hits?". And the band titled the album "What Hits!?"
So the point here is that it wasn't too early for the Chili Peppers to put out a greatest hits album, and it's not too early for me to put out a highlight album of the Patriots 2007 season so far. Of course the major difference is that I don't have a guitarist dealing with drug addiction and about to quit the band, so you won't have to wait another three years to get new stuff from me with Dave Navarro. Believe me, that makes way more sense if you know the history of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I attended what will be my final Patriots training camp practice of the year this afternoon. They have one more practice session open to the public tomorrow at 5:30, but I have other plans so I'll be skipping that one
The coaches seemed happy at the start of practice today, but at least Bill Belichick was moderately pissed off during situational plays. Most of his frustration was aimed at the defense and at one point the whole defense had to run a lap as punishment for their poor performance on a couple of plays. The funny part about it was that the penalty lap brought out the loudest cheering of the day from the fans.
Hearing Belichick call out the specific situations every few minutes made me wonder if he has a notepad sitting by his bed so he can write this stuff down if he wakes up in the middle of the night. I wouldn't be that surprised if he wakes up, writes down something like "3rd and 4 on our own 45, 20 seconds left, down by 3", and then goes back to sleep. After all, if you're really into what you do then it's almost impossible to stop thinking about it.
So these will be my last Patriots photos of the year unless I can finagle myself some media credentials, which would be very nice.
Video Podcast, August 13, 2007
David Lee Roth is back in Van Halen, the Patriots should be back in the Superbowl, and David Beckham didn't play again.
A quick thunderstorm rolled through this evening, so I decided to do some time lapse work with it. This 24 second clip is about 50 minutes in real time.
Today was a day for situations.... 3rd downs, goal line, two minute drill, etc. The offense did well in the goal line situations, but the defense dominated the two minute drills intercepting passes to end it both times. Mike Vrabel made the interception when the starters were on the field and Mike Richardson made the interception when the reserves were out there. Each player was hoisted up on their teammates shoulders after their respective plays.
During another play, Tedy Bruschi intercepted a pass and ran it back to the endzone. A good day for the defense overall.
There were far fewer fans in attendance today than there have been for the past week and a half. I suppose last night's practice that was open only to season ticket holders satisfied the training camp itch for a lot of people. It was nice to have a little more space, but I ended up near a couple of misbehaved kids named Alex and Ethan. The reason I know their names is because their father said each name about twenty or thirty times as they were running around, throwing a football, and bumping into people. It reminded me of the old Bill Cosby routine about the kid named Jeffrey on the airplane. They bumped into me a few times, but I was fortunate enough to avoid being hit by the football.
Click here for today's photo set.
Practice at the Gillette Stadium practice fields was very light today. Nobody wore pads so there was no hitting, and the team seemed pretty loose and happy despite the ridiculous heat and humidity. It's what I imagine training camp in Miami must be like every day.
Today was a day for the missing players to step onto the field. The guys who are on the physically unable to perform list were not wearing their practice jerseys, nor were they participating in the plays being run, but they were there. Troy Brown, Richard Seymour, and Donte Stallworth were the most notable of that group. Randy Moss was back on the field and took part in a couple of plays.
Tom Brady turns 30 years old today, which brought on about 8 or 10 renditions of "Happy Birthday" sung by different groups of the roughly 6,000 fans in attendance this morning.
The linebackers were on autograph duty when practice ended with Tedy Bruschi getting the loudest cheers as fans clamored to have him sign something for them. At one point he signed one of those red old school Patriots jerseys for someone, but wiped the sweat off of his forehead with it first. Actually it was Brady who got the loudest cheers, and the mob of photographers and fans chasing after him as he signed autographs was a little bit crazy.
Photos for August 2, 2007 - morning practice
It was a short practice this morning for the Patriots. They ended it around 10:00 after spending a majority of the time working on special teams. Rookie safety Brandon Meriweather got work in for the first team on both sides of the punting game, lined up on the outside in both cases. Those who were not on special teams spent a majority of the practice hanging out on the sideline. It was a non-throwing practice for Tom Brady during quarterback drills, which is not a surprise since he's limiting the amount of throws he makes in the preseason to make sure his arm is fresh at the end of the season and into the playoffs
As expected, Randy Moss was nowhere to be seen this morning after he tweaked his hamstring in yesterday afternoon's practice. Troy Brown has still not practiced with the team, though I have heard a lot of fans asking out loud where he is. He's on the physically unable to perform list.
After the players were done with practice, owner Bob Kraft came over to sign a few autographs for fans who were calling out his name. He had been standing in between the practice fields talking with a group of people that included the referees who were on hand today.
The best quote of the day... one fan yelled out "Hey, Bobby! Way to spend the dough this off season!" That made Kraft chuckle a little bit.
Best non-quote of the day. As Laurence Maroney was signing autographs for fans, someone asked him if he was ready to carry the load this season. Maroney smiled and shook his head, no. My interpretation is that he was just joking around, so don't worry.
The starters got a little more action at today's practice, and the starting offense pushed right down the field and scored a touchdown in the two minute drill at the end of the day. Jabar Gaffney caught a pass from Tom Brady in the front corner of the end zone... well, it didn't look like a catch to me, but the referee had a much better look at it as he was about 5 feet away from the play compared to me being about 100 feet away.
Yes, the referees were there again today and at one point Rodney Harrison was arguing a pass interference call made against him.
Randy Moss apparently tweaked a hamstring while chasing down a deep pass during one play. Actually, you can see him on that play in the 8th picture of today's set. I noticed he didn't practice anymore after that, but didn't realize there was a potential injury until I read about it in the Reiss's Pieces section of the Boston Globe website. Then I took a second look at some of my photos and did notice that Moss was on the sideline with a wrap around the outside of his pants on his upper left leg. Considering he was hanging out on the sidelines still in uniform means that it probably isn't that big of a problem.
|
|
