Patriots QBs Reveal How Offseason Throwing Sessions Came Together
Cam Newton’s coaches haven’t seen the New England Patriots quarterback let it rip in person yet, but some of his teammates have.
Newton worked out with fellow Patriots Mohamed Sanu, Julian Edelman, Damiere Byrd, N’Keal Harry and Devin Asiasi out in Los Angeles. Patriots quarterbacks Jarrett Stidham and Brian Hoyer held similar workouts in New England with Sanu, Edelman, Gunner Olszewski, Dalton Keene, Jakob Johnson and David Andrews that predated Newton’s sessions.
Newton said the workouts at UCLA were “rather interesting.”
“Just to see how their movements are from in and out of cuts, in and out of breaks and to actually break the ice,” Newton said Friday. “I wanted to get a head start on [them] at that particular time. Just get on the same page and expectation because let’s be honest, it’s not much that you can learn from a person more than you can learn from out of the facility interaction. I just wanted to see from personal things to even professional things as well.”
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The NFL offseason has been significantly truncated this spring and summer. There were no organized team activities nor minicamp, training camp will be shortened by two weeks, and preseason games have been canceled. So, to avoid a seven-month break between practicing with teammates, Stidham and Hoyer played catch with some teammates.
“Hoy and I were here on the East Coast,” Stidham said Friday. “So, we weren’t able to have OTAs, obviously, so we just said, ‘Hey, if anybody is in town or wants to come into town let’s just try and get together and be responsible about everything and try and get some good work in.’ Going from January to training camp is a long time not to throw with guys, get timing and chemistry down with those guys. That’s just kind of how we did it. We were fortunate enough to have some guys.”
Hoyer had moved back to New England before he even re-signed with the Patriots, making his decision to rejoin the organization in March much easier. In place of spring practices, NFL teams instead met virtually. That wasn’t going to be enough for most quarterbacks.
“We were having these virtual meetings and said, ‘look, if anyone’s in town normally we’d be doing this right now and we have to be smart about it.’ So we kind of put that together,” Hoyer said Friday. “Once Cam came along we had one or two more sessions with people coming back into town. Now, we’ve been back in the building. It’s been good. Look, this is the NFL and teammates change from year-to-year. There’s always additions, subtractions. People come into the room, you embrace it and you move on. You’re teammates and one day at a time.”
Newton, Stidham and Hoyer are competing for the Patriots’ starting quarterback job. Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and quarterbacks coach Jedd Fisch intimated Friday that the competition is wide open.