The pads came on for the first time Monday, but it was a much, much different day than many expected. Here’s everything we saw from what turned out to be a bit of an odd day for the Pats…

-A much smaller crowd today. Still a pretty good size, but I wonder if the whole Monday thing just kept some people way that are able to attend various days late in the week last week. The energy wasn’t there and I think the players sort of fed off that the first handful of practices.

-Bailey Zappe was once again the first guy out, with Mac following about two minutes later as Bill Belichick (still in that 07 red hoodie) met with the media. It’s either been one of the two QB’s or Chad Ryland and Bryce Baringer out first each day. Last year it was Terrance Mitchell and Jalen Mills.

-Matt Judon and Trent Brown were both on the lower conditioning field Monday. Rhamondre Stevenson joined them down there a bit later on. Mike Onwenu and Calvin Anderson were still absent.

-After individual drills, it was time to start taking advantage of the pads being on, Belichick mentioned that we’d see more attempts at jamming receivers and that’s exactly what we saw early on during some light screen work. Mac hit Demario Douglas on the first one, JuJu on the second and Myles Bryant kind of blew up the third attempt (think Malcolm Butler play in the Super Bowl in terms of what they were working on route was) intended for Tre Nixon. Ed Lee also grabbed a screen before Mac pumped the next play and hit Mike Geiscki on a bit of a deeper route. At one point, Ross Douglas was “playing” running back in the drill, juking a couple guys and drawing a laugh from players. A couple more screens to Lee and Nixon were followed by pump fakes on the screen and throws to JuJu and Gesicki before the period ended.

-For the next five minutes or so at about 10:40, the Pats did some very quick 11-on-11 work which mostly included handoffs to Kevin Harris and Pierre Strong with JJ Taylor getting some run too. Harris was by far the best back of the day. He looked explosive when he hit a hole and prior to getting to the hole his jump cut was very noticeable.

-During a brief stint of O-line and D-line 1-on-1 work (not really the kind we’re used to seeing and analyzing, more controlled chaos with a RB and a QB), Mac and Zappe worked with Raleigh Webb, Ed Lee, JuJu, Tre Nixon and Kayshon Boutte for a bit.

-Cole Strange went down awkwardly – a theme of the day for a handful of guys – and appeared to injure his knee. He ended up going through a bunch of tests and put his helmet back on, but ended up standing on the sideline for the rest of practice. Tough way to celebrate a birthday.

-During some punt work a couple minutes later, Myles Bryant muffed a punt and had to do a lap. There were multiple laps ran today for the first time all of camp. Douglas, Marcus Jones and JJ Taylor all fielded punts too.

-11-on-11 on the plus side of the field again around 10:50 for 10 minutes or so. Mac hit a quick hitch to JuJu, Deatrich Wise got some heavy pressure on a quick throw to JuJu, found Gesicki on a quick out and dumped a throw off to Strong. When Zappe came in, it was a quick out to Douglas (who has continued to make some noise and given the coaches something to think about), two incompletions and that was the period. Neither QB really got a ton of snaps in team stuff today to show off their arm, this was all about the running game for the two hours the team was out there.

-Back to some punt work for a few. Baringer had a hell of a day punting compared to Sunday. While I thought Waitman had already locked up the job, some of the bombs Baringer hit today (with outrageous hang time) were quite impressive. Marcus Jones, Bryant, Douglas and Lee all received again.

-The D-line and O-line hit the sleds for a bit at this point while QB’s and WR’s had some very light work with more route concepts under the watchful eye of Bill O’Brien.

-Back to 11-on-11, this time with tempo. A handoff to Harris from Mac was followed up with an offside call on Wise, which was good for a lap. Another hand off to Harris and then a dump off to Harris capped that drive for Mac. Zappe went handoff to Strong, offside on Sam Roberts (lap), handoff to Strong and then Isaiah Bolden had the play of the day with a sick diving PBU against Tyquan Thornton. The running game looked good as the Pats ran both a little bit of inside and outside zone. Already better than a year ago and this was the first real day they had focused on it.

-Mac came back out for another drive in the 11-on-11 tempo period and handed off to Harris, hit JuJu on a screen, handed off to Taylor and then had an incompletion to Harris fairly deep. Zappe went screen to Douglas, handoff to Taylor, handoff to Taylor, incomplete pass off play action looking for Douglas deep. DB Brad Hawkins got a bit banged up at this point but walked off.

-Belichick then yelled out “red zone!” but once the team gathered down the end of the field, he huddled them all together and had a chat with the team for about 2-3 minutes. Wise later revealed that the message was to take care of each other as guys were going to the ground quite a bit on Monday. I also thought it might have been for the lack of energy. There was a lethargic feel really from the very first period that was very obvious to everyone in attendance.

-Harris had a sick jump cut for a TD before Mac had an incompletion off play action. Jones pumped and found JuJu for a TD on his final snap. Zappe handed off to Strong, threw a TD to Bourne – which was literally his first catch in live action all of camp – and then handed it off to Strong.

-Oddly enough, linebacker Jahlani Tavai also got a little bit of run as a fullback today, which amused his defensive teammates quite a bit.

-After a couple goal line carries for each guy (Strong had the most impressive one at the end, pushing his way into the end zone) it was off to the hill for conditioning. Once again, Mac and the QB’s stayed late to get extra work in, as did a few other guys at various positions.

While the day wasn’t a waste by any means, it did feel much different and less enthusiastic than the first few. Now, getting used to getting hit in pads again takes time and Belichick did say it would be this type of practice, but the lack of energy was very surprising. Hopefully, things ramp up on Tuesday. Practice was originally scheduled for 12:30 but was moved up to the “normal” 9:45 slot with Beyonce at Gillette on Tuesday night. Gates open to the public again at 8:30 in the morning.