Belichick appreciates Garoppolo's well-executed scramble

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Bill Belichick had an unusual word for the Patriots second preseason game, a comeback 26-24 win over the Saints on Saturday night: "Interesting."

But given the number of situational moments that came up -- third-and-longs, end-of-half drives, end-of-game drives -- Belichick's description was apt. During a conference call on Sunday morning, he explained that the game in New Orleans provided the Patriots an opportunity to execute a variety of the things that they had worked on but are hard to replicate on a practice field.

"There was a lot of good learning experiences there for all of us," he said. "You take advantage of whichever situations come up. The ones last night were a lot of good situational football examples -- whether it was trying to score, trying to get the ball back. There were a couple of two-minute drives there, really three two-minutes drives at the end of the half: one we had that we didn’t score on, then one that they scored on quickly, then another one that we scored on after we got it back after their score. Plus a lot of other things, but those were great situations for us to learn from.

"We practiced them, they came up in the game. Situation football is a big part of the game. It’s not all first-and-10, second down out in the middle of the field and all that. There are a lot of very specific situations, and it was good to have an opportunity to practice some of those and learn from them -- for the guys that were in there and even for those of us that weren’t -- to go through what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it. A real live situation like that is as good a teaching tool as you can have. No matter how many times you practice it, it’s a little more realistic in the game."

One of those situations came near the end of the first half, when Patriots quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo found undrafted rookie receiver Chris Harper for a 24-yard touchdown. During the play, Garoppolo was pressured, wriggled out of a potential sack and found Harper, who had re-adjusted his route in response to Garoppolo's movement behind the line of scrimmage.

During Patriots training camp practices this summer, any time a repetition in a 11-on-11 setting was extended, spectators could hear the coaching staff shout, "scramble!," alerting the receivers that it was time to ad-lib and find an opening in the secondary.

Of course there are no red non-contact jerseys in preseason games as there are in practices so with less than a minute remaining in the first half against the Saints, the Patriots ran a live-speed scramble drill with real-life physical consequences if Garoppolo was not able to get rid of the football on time.

"Those are the types of plays that offensively and defensively we work on in practice," Belichick said, "but those scrambles in practice are never quite the same as in the game because you’re not hitting the quarterback and you’re not really trying to get him down and all that. It was good to actually have those come up where the quarterback does truly have to scramble and avoid pressure, and make a decision, get his head up and get the ball down the field.

"We saw that defensively quite a bit last week with Aaron Rodgers, and he extended a number of plays. Then last night Jimmy had a couple, particularly . . . the touchdown right before the end of the half. Those are plays we talk a lot about but we can’t really fully execute them like they are in the game, whichever side we’re on -- offense or defense -- and we need to practice those. It was good that it came up and we can certainly teach off of those."

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