FOXBORO -- It's always a mystery. Even to Jimmy Garoppolo, one of the team's two able-bodied quarterbacks at the moment.
The number of reps a signal-caller will take on a given day of training camp is closely guarded information that not even Garoppolo is told prior to practices.
"Never," Garoppolo said. "It's always a surprise."
Some of the 23,497 in attendance to watch the Patriots practice inside Gillette Stadium on Wednesday night may have been surprised as well because Garoppolo took the vast majority of the snaps during the two-our ticketed event.
Garoppolo was behind center for 39 of the team's 11-on-11 snaps, while Tom Brady's workload was considerably lighter. He took just seven snaps on Wednesday and threw five passes (completing them all).
While Garoppolo was much more active, he completed only 15-of-33 attempts, which in terms of completion percentage was a significant drop from where he hovered through the team's first six practices.
Granted, Garoppolo didn't have a few of the team's best targets to work with since Brady wasn't the only one who received something resembling a night off. Neither Rob Gronkowski nor Scott Chandler made a catch in 11-on-11 work as they were scantly involved. Danny Amendola took on a lighter-than-normal workload in team drills, and Julian Edelman missed the session.
Still, the second-year quarterback out of Eastern Illinois was pleased with his busy night of work, saying he thought he grew during the workout.
"A ton. A ton," Garoppolo said. "Every rep matters. When you get an opportunity like this to come out with the guys and have the majority of the reps, it's a good thing. You have to take advantage of it."
He added: "It's more game-like, I would say, than switching back and forth. That definitely benefits you going forward."
Patriots coach Bill Belichick has been mum on his quarterback situation throughout camp -- "We don’t have backups and starters, we just have a team," he said after Wednesday's practice -- but Garoppolo has drawn nothing but praise from his teammates.
"Jimmy," LeGarrette Blount said, smiling like a cat who ate a football-sized canary, "is gonna be good."
Garoppolo flashed with a few impressive throws, including one deep down the middle of the field to Josh Boyce with pressure bearing down on him. (The key to that one? "Don't under-throw it," he said.) But Garoppolo also appeared to hesitate in certain situations, hitting a receiver late or making an inaccurate throw at points.
While he liked seeing as many snaps as he did, Garoppolo admitted that he was far from perfect.
"You can never be satisfied," he said. "You always want to be faster and faster. There's good defensive lines in this league and the faster you get it out the better."
The assumption is that starting on Thursday, when the Patriots practice at 1:45 p.m. -- a session that will be free and open to the public -- Brady will once again see more consistent work.
Garoppolo had his night under the lights, and while it could have gone smoother, he'll take the experience -- the mistakes, the successes -- and try to learn from it.
"That's what training camp is for," he said.