FOXBORO -- In the NFL, winning is the goal. But it can come at a price, and often the time to collect is training camp.
The Patriots began Saturday's practice with 23 of their 90 players missing for a variety of different reasons, and running back Travaris Cadet left the session after sustaining what looked like a leg injury during a special teams period of practice. (Cadet walked off the field under his own power and toward the practice bubble, missing the remainder of the session.)
The entire list of missing players can be found in today's Postcard from Camp, but several of those either missing or limited played significant roles in last year's Super Bowl run and are still recovering from a season that extended into February.
Dont'a Hightower and Sebastian Vollmer have both been limited during camp as they come back from shoulder injuries. Bryan Stork, who dealt with a leg injury late in the season, missed Saturday's practice. Julian Edelman and Brandon LaFell, both of whom played through injuries into the Super Bowl, have not practiced recently; Edelman has missed time since tweaking something in his foot or ankle on Sunday, and LaFell remains on the physically unable to perform list.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick said that the effects of a long season can oftentimes linger into training camp. He knows from experience.
"That’s really been a big challenge for us over the last 15 years," Belichick said. "It’s a good problem to have. Obviously, you want to play long into the season, but it definitely shortens the time period for the players to recover and be ready for the next year, particularly the ones who have more significant injuries – surgeries, depending on what the surgery is – but some type of ligament repair-type surgeries, sometimes those things take a little bit longer. Our time frame there is a lot of times a month to six weeks less than where some other teams are, and then that affects us on this end of it, particularly in the training camp period . . .
"So, it’s definitely something that we’ve had to deal with through the years and particularly a year like this, where a lot of players after the length of the season and what happened at the end of the season with some postseason activities and parades and this and that, sometimes it gets pushed another week, 10 days, two weeks back, which just comes up here on the other end. So, timing and the ability to get some of those things taken care of at the end of the season isn’t always optimal for us relative to some other teams in the league. It’s definitely a challenge. Fortunately or unfortunately – however you want to look at it – we’ve had a lot of experience with it."
New England Patriots
Though the Patriots are set on moving on from last season and looking ahead to what faces them right now, Belichick admitted that the team has to take into account the health of its players and the ailments from which they're still recovering. It's an issue that he and his coaching staff discuss throughout training camp and even into the regular season.
"We talk a lot about having to manage that situation," Belichick said. "It’s a bad problem, but it’s actually a good problem to have. But, [it’s] . . . something that I think is a very big part of how we have to look at I’d say the first four to 10 weeks of the season – training camp, early part of September into October – there are a lot of situations that kind of fall under that umbrella somewhere along the line. And obviously this year, we have whatever it is – nine players on PUP – and we’re into the second week of August. So, we still have a number of guys we’re dealing with, and some guys are practicing who have been fully cleared to practice, but they’re not 100 percent yet."