Players need training camp and preseason games to get ready for the contests that count. Coaches can be prepared for regular-season press conferences without much practice.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who already hatched a new catch phrase in one of this first media sessions of the season, had little to say about the decision to give quarterback Tom Brady some playing time on Thursday night.
Asked what went into the decision to start Brady, Belichick said, “We played a lot of players tonight.”
Asked whether it was a last-minute decision to play Brady, Belichick said, “We played all the guys that could play.