The first two days of full-pads practices earlier this week were encouraging for New England Patriots rookie offensive tackle Will Campbell. While the fourth overall selection in this year’s draft had some moments of inconsistency on both Monday and Tuesday, the arrow was seemingly pointing in the right direction at all times.
Then came Wednesday. While the Patriots did shed the full pads for a shoulder pad-shorts combination, the level of competition and physicality remained unchanged.
What was different
was Campbell’s ability to withstand the pressure he was facing. The 21-year-old was first beaten by Bradyn Swinson in 1-on-1s and then twice by K’Lavon Chaisson in full team work. Both Swinson and Chaisson got the better of their fellow LSU product by using inside moves and forcing him to overcorrect.
While those particular reps and that practice as a whole were a regression for Campbell, there is no reason to worry yet. Just ask the Patriots’ other starting tackle, Morgan Moses.
“It’s the evolution of football,” Moses told reporters after Thursday’s walkthrough. “He’s learning to be a pro and he’s learning how to not make the same mistakes that he made the day before.”
Moses, a free agency signing by the Patriots in March, has worked closely with Campbell ever since the Patriots drafted the latter in April and taken over as a mentor for his young teammate. The 34-year-old is therefore well aware of his abilities and remains optimistic about his outlook even after a bad practice.
“Obviously, we have a great defensive line across there; those guys come every day and we go against them every day in 1-on-1s and things like that,” Moses explained. “They are doing a great job of pulling him to the side and telling him tendencies that he might have and stuff like that. So, he’s learning.
“It’s a part of the process. We’re all learning. I told him [Wednesday], ‘I’d be lying if I told you in 12 years I’ve never had a bad practice.’ But that’s a part of who Will is: eager to learn, eager to get back out there and fix things. That’s what you want from a younger guy.”
Coming off a particularly disappointing season for the offensive line, the Patriots decided to overhaul the entire operation. Besides hiring a new line coach under first-year head coach Mike Vrabel — Doug Marrone — they also invested serious assets in the likes of Campbell, Moses and interior linemen Jared Wilson and Garrett Bradbury.
With the second week of training camp set to come to a close on Friday, New England appears to be on its way to having four new starters along its O-line. In order for the unit to operate as one, as Moses called it, come the regular season, it is spending extra time together.
“We have our little breakfast club meetings after practice where we just get together and talk football,” he said. “Things that you might have struggled with that day at practice, or things that might have popped up that I might have seen when somebody else was in, or somebody might have seen of me when I was in. We have those conversations. That’s how you get better off the field an on the field.”
Campbell is, naturally, part of those conversations. The hope is that they will help him, just like the rest of the line, to keep developing in a positive direction — and, in his particular case, to show that Wednesday’s practice was merely the blip on the radar Moses believes it to be.
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