FOXBOROUGH, Massachusetts — Cornerback Malcolm Butler is a Super Bowl hero and a Pro Bowler. He is established as New England’s No. 1 left cornerback in just his third season. But the young player continues to take his lumps at times on the practice field.
Last week he admitted that Saints speedster Brandin Cooks got the better of him in joint practice action with New Orleans. This week, Chicago Bears big-bodied pass catchers Alshon Jeffery and Kevin White both found success against Butler. The Patriots host the Bears in a preseason game Thursday at 8 p.m.
According to coach Bill Belichick, the challenges Butler and the rest of the Patriots cornerbacks have faced over the last two weeks will only help the team in the long run.
“It’s been great. It’s really good for our pass defense to see the quality of the two passing games that we’ve seen here in practice; the quarterbacks, the receivers,” Belichick said. “New Orleans had very good receivers. A guy like Cooks, who’s a smaller, quick, fast guy, is a different style than say a guy like Jeffrey or White that we’re seeing this week. It’s good for us to see all of those guys and the skill of the quarterbacks that we’ve seen the last couple of weeks. It’s great work for us and the schemes are a little bit different, too. What New Orleans does and what Chicago does in the passing game is a little bit different than what we do. So, we got good work against that from a scheme standpoint, too, so that’s been really good in that area.”
Brady praises Garoppolo
Quarterback Tom Brady’s relationship with backup Jimmy Garoppolo — the 2014 second-round pick who will start the first four games of the season with Brady suspended to open the year — has been questioned at times. But this week, Brady had plenty of good things to say about his understudy.
“He works his tail off to prepare and I know he has the respect of everybody,” Brady said. “That’s what you try to do, you try to come out here and prepare, earn the respect of your teammates and your coaches, and you’ve got to put the work in. You’ve got to show that you’re willing to show up every day and do whatever it takes to get the job done. It’s been fun to see his development.”
A day after those comments, while filling in for Brady on what will be weekly radio appearances on WEEI in Boston, Garoppolo seemed to genuinely appreciate the comments.
“He’s always helping me out, I’m trying to help him as much as I can, it’s a good working relationship,” Garoppolo said. “It’s an honor for him to say something like that.”
Tense in the trenches
The Patriots and Bears got into a number of scuffles, pushing matches and one all-out brawl during the teams’ three days of joint practices in Foxborough. The biggest of the fights came on the opening day of the work, beginning between cornerback Malcolm Butler and wide receiver Alshon Jeffery before engulfing a few dozen players from each squad.
Thanks to Bill Belichick’s rules of practice, both players were kicked out of the session for the rest of the day, as was New England center Bryan Stork a day later when he head-butted a Bears linebacker in another incident.
“When you do that, you have to get kicked out, just like a game, and then go inside. That’s what happened (to Butler),” safety Duron Harmon explained. “Malcolm Butler’s a talented player and we don’t want that to happen. We don’t want to lose him because he’s a big part of what we do.
“There’s really no place for it on the football field. We’ve got to not let our tempers rile up that much and just continue to have discipline, even when stuff’s not going the way you want it to. Just continue to stay focused and remember the bigger picture.”
“It’s not a good thing to fight in practice by any means,” quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo pointed out, adding that he has mixed emotions about seeing fisticuffs on the field.
“You like to have guys on your team with that type of mindset. It’s football, it’s a physical game. Things are going to happen out there. You want to have a guy on your team who’s going to have your back. I think our team’s full of those type of guys.”
“It’s football. Sometimes that happens,” added defensive end Chris Long, “but it’s our job out here to make the most of our reps, be professional. We’re going to continue to try to do that.”