ATLANTA (AP) – The Patriots wore helmets and shells for an 88-minute session in Georgia Tech’s indoor facility, their first practice in Atlanta.
There was one addition to the injury report. Defensive tackle Malcom Brown was limited with a calf injury, coach Bill Belichick said. Brown was at practice wearing his helmet but spent most of the session on the sideline.
“He did some stuff early in practice today,” Belichick said of Brown. “Everybody else was good to go.”
The starting offense and defense alternated plays for the length of the 80-yard turf field, going 11 on 11 plays against the scout team that was mimicking Rams personnel.
“We are way ahead of where we normally are on Wednesday, but we are trying to keep it as a Wednesday/Thursday/Friday and get into our normal routine, which has worked pretty well for us this year,” Belichick said.
The Patriots held one padded practice in Foxborough, Massachusetts, last week, and opted to work in just upper shells Wednesday.
Belichick seemed pleased with the Patriots’ setup in Atlanta, noting “there is not a lot of travel time” between their hotel and Georgia Tech’s campus. The Patriots practiced indoors all last week while they were still in Foxborough, and will conduct all their work indoors this week as well.
“There are 20-story skyscrapers surrounding the field,” Belichick said. “I don’t think we can have a public practice out there.”
Across town, the Rams held a one-hour, 33-minute practice at the Falcons’ facility in Flowery Branch.
“It was great,” Rams coach Sean McVay said, “and it was good really for players and coaches. You almost get away from it a couple of days. It’s good just to sharpen yourself up, making sure we’re tightening all the screws on the game plan. I thought the players did a nice job just getting a little bit of a lather. It was really a big emphasis on above the neck, and then tomorrow and Friday will be good to kind of finalize the week.”
The Rams’ routine is a walkthrough on Wednesdays. They got back to work with no helmets — other than those with the coach-to-player communication system — and no hitting while going at half speed.
Since Week 4, the Rams have held lighter practices on Wednesdays.
“Really where I got it from was just learning from our training staff as far as a sports-science approach, just being smart with our players,” McVay said.
“Earlier in the year, we end up practicing on Wednesdays and then depending upon where we are injury-wise or how our team is feeling, for us this year was after Week 4, we ended up tailoring our Wednesdays back. Guys have handled it really well. I think it’s been good from a performance standpoint. We’re able to get a lot of reps, but we don’t get as much physical work as you’d like, but that’s why the Thursdays and the Fridays are so important to us.”
Safety Blake Countess (foot) remained out while kicker Greg Zuerlein (left foot) was limited. Those were the only two players listed on the team’s injury report.
“Greg Zuerlein kicked a little bit, and he’s on track,” McVay said. “And I believe Blake will be good, but we want to be smart with him earlier this week.”
Countess, who was listed as questionable on the team’s status report Friday, did some work with the trainer on the side at the start of practice.
“Feel good, feel really good (injury-wise),” McVay said. “I think Blake will be OK with his foot and same thing with Greg. Really that’s all you can ask for this time of year to be as healthy as we are.”
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