Howe: Brady Getting Majority Of First-Team Reps For Patriots
BOSTON (CBS) -- Tom Brady may have a date in court scheduled for Wednesday, and he may still have an uncertain future in the fight to vacate his four-game suspension. But so far through camp, the Patriots seem to be treating Brady as if he'll be under center for Week 1 against the Steelers.
"Tom Brady has still gotten, I'd estimate, 90 to 95 percent of the first-team reps against the starting defense," the Boston Herald's Jeff Howe said Tuesday on Toucher & Rich. "They've really gone all in on him. And he's been absolutely tremendous through 10 practices in camp. He's completed upwards of 80 percent of his passes. Now granted, these are conducive to offensive success in these practices, and there's no real live contact on the defensive side of it. But still, Tom Brady has been outstanding."
Despite that, Howe said that expectations for Brady playing on Thursday night ought to be a bit tempered -- though it has nothing to do with the court date or the battle with the NFL.
"The biggest thing to me, I think, for Thursday night's decision should be the offensive line," Howe said, noting that Brady has sat out of the preseason opener four times since 2002. "There was a point yesterday to start team drills, Nate Solder left practice early, I'm not sure if was an injury thing, but he was out. Sebastian Vollmer has still been limited. Bryan Stork has missed two practices now, and then the two guards are rookies. So they were starting three backups and two rookies in front of Brady, and in his first 10 reps of 11-on-11's, he was sacked five times. So that's a nightmare right there going into a game that means absolutely nothing.
"Do you really want Tom Brady lining up behind that offensive line? I don't think you need to worry too much about the legal stuff as you need to Tom Brady's long-term health."
With that being said, the workload falls onto the shoulder of Jimmy Garoppolo, who's been under a different sort of spotlight this summer due to Brady's situation.
"Jimmy Garoppolo has been good for the most part. He's had a couple of bad practices but you're expecting that from a guy that still doesn't have that much experience, or very minimal in-game experience. But I think he's still taken some good steps toward where they'd like him to be," Howe said. "If he needs to start four games this season, he needs to start making quicker decisions, and we'll see how he can handle himself against some starting-caliber defenses. I'd imagine once the Patriots have more answers from the courts, maybe after tomorrow or next week, they'll start to try to figure out this Garoppolo thing. Or maybe they'll just give him more reps once they close down practice to the media, so we can't really watch this as much."
There's also been a lot of hype surrounding cornerback Malcolm Butler. The Super Bowl rescuer has turned some heads with his play in training camp. While Howe noted that these plays can't be ignored, he cautioned that Butler is not necessarily the second coming of Darrelle Revis.
"I think it should be a good year. I'm not sure if he's going to be very good. He definitely won't be great. I mean, Darrelle Revis was great," Howe said. "But Malcolm Butler had his best practice of training camp yesterday. He intercepted a pass, jumped Josh Boyce's route and picked off Tom Brady's pass with one hand, to the point where I had to turn around and ask somebody if he actually picked it off. It was such a great play that I couldn't believe it."
"He's a good cornerback. There's no doubt that he's been their best cornerback in camp. He still gets beat -- he got beat a handful of times on Saturday. So it's not going to be perfect, it's not going to be great, but he's been good and he's been promising."
Howe also discussed how Rob Gronkowski looks like he might break some records this season, how the linebacking situation might play out, and more. Listen below!
