SmashMouth

This isn't just practice for the other guys on the team.

For those fighting to earn a roster spot, these practices are the same as games. And that isn't hyperbole. Coach Sean Payton said as much after Tuesday's practices when asked how he would evaluate the sessions.

“I would say there probably isn’t a lot of difference," Payton said. "The difference in a game is that you’re tackling, so there’s some element to when a play’s finished. This provides a lot of tape for us to study. We have a lot to do with the way the afternoon’s set up to do that, meet with our players on it. The other difference is that a lot of them might receive more reps than they will in a preseason game. Starting with your frontline guys too.”

It was a good day of work for both teams, as they got to measure their progress against a new opponent after getting the same looks during the first two weeks of training camp.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick shared a similar sentiment to Payton when asked how his staff views these practices.



"I think it is all part of it. It’s a big mosaic, a lot of pieces in the jigsaw puzzle," Belichick said. "They all count, they all have value, some of it is circumstantial. We just have to do the best we can with the information that we have, and that’s definitely a component of it. Some of that is who the matchups are, who they’re going against, what we’re doing and so forth and so on."

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