New England Patriots Training Camp, Day Seven: Belichick on injured players, Gutierrez in KC

August 6, 1:37 AMNew England Patriots ExaminerSean Crowe

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(AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

You’ll have to forgive me, I’m still a little punch-drunk after hearing about the Eli Manning contract. Someone hide tomorrow’s newspaper from Tom Brady’s agent…

Wednesday featured day seven of training camp, day seven of two-a-days, and practices thirteen and fourteen.

For the most part, it was a relatively uneventful day, save for the first dropped pass by Randy Moss this summer.

Belichick actually gave the players a break by making the second practice of the day a walk-through.

In case you’re curious about the player who haven’t been practicing, such as Ty Warren, Richard Seymour, Shawn Crable, and Tedy Bruschi (among others), Belichick had this to say about them during Wednesday’s press conference:

We'd like to have all the players out at practice for every practice. But realistically that's not going to be the case in this training camp or probably any other training camp and probably for any other team in the league. That's part of camp. Some guys are out there; some guys aren't. People are in a lot of different situations and I think everybody that's not out there -- with very few exceptions -- are in the day-to-day category. They are making progress. They are getting close. Whether that's the next practice, two practices, three practices, we have to take that day by day and see how the players progress along. But I think -- as a group -- the guys that aren't practicing are relatively close to getting back out there. Again, it varies from player to player and as we go through the rehab that might change. I think that a lot of these guys will be back out in a relatively short amount of time, although there's no timeframe for that.

So, while he didn’t exactly say when any of them would be returning to practice, he did say that none of the injures are significant.

He also touched on the Mike Shanahan appearance Tuesday:

As everybody knows, I have great respect for Mike. It was good to be able to talk to Mike in not a competitive situation where we're trying to beat each other's brains out, but talk football and talk about some team situations and things like that. I think Mike's a tremendous coach. He's a great football mind. He's a good motivator. He's run an excellent organization from top to bottom: coaching, scouting, player acquisition, all that stuff. Mike's done it all. He's done it very well. He's one of the top coaches in this league, even though he's not in it currently. I would still consider him one of the top NFL coaches -- certainly over my career -- that I've competed with. We go back a long way when we were both coordinators. Mike and I have competed for a long time. It's good not to have to do that this year.

Other notes from Wednesday:

Kevin Carter apparently left Foxborough without signing a contract. He’s mulling over the Patriots’ offer at home with his family and is expected to make a decision in the next day or so. I still think he’d be a great addition.

The NFL sent an official to the Patriots’ first practice session. He was there to meet with the players and go over the NFL’s rule changes and whatever rules the officials have been told  to emphasize .

The Boston Herald had an interesting quote from NFL referee Terry McAulay on Bernard Pollard's hit on Tom Brady last season:

“Even though there is contact with (an offensive player), he is lunging, not swiping,” McAulay said. “On that play, he would’ve hit (Brady) forcibly in the knee whether or not the other player was doing anything. That was pretty apparent. If you use your hand to swipe or make a normal tackle, you’ll be OK. Players know how to trip up or grab. But you can’t lunge into a knee. And we’ve seen it for years.”

Matt Gutierrez, who was placed on waivers Tuesday, was claimed by the Patriots West, also known as the Kansas City Chiefs. He joins Mike Vrabel, Matt Cassel, Vince Redd, and the immortal Monty Beisel as former Patriots now playing for Scott Pioli.

Oh, and by the way, this is well worth the money. It's not just the on-field talent that's been upgraded since Bob Kraft bought the team...

Previous Recaps:

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

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Questions? Comments? Insults? You can email them to Sean Crowe at scrowe@gmail.com.