- 7 months ago
Former Patriots center David Andrews shared his initial thoughts from training camp, including a unique perspective about what Will Campbell's development and expectations.
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00:00former Patriots center David Andrews all right what's up guys how we doing I'm great it's my
00:04first day I've actually got to watch some of my practice wish they were in pads but
00:07see this is great so you're no longer an active player yeah so you're one of us now yeah and you
00:14get to sit there and look at all the all the reps all the statistics uh through six or seven days
00:20of camp where you really don't have the ability to hit twice a day yeah you really don't have that
00:24much contact but uh do you get a chuckle out of it yeah based on some of the breakdowns you know I
00:29mean it's it's interesting to hear people talk but that's that's what that's why football is so great
00:36because there's so much to talk about day in and day out in training camp you don't hear that kind
00:40of coverage on baseball or you know hockey basketball but there's so much that goes into
00:46football and there's so much to talk about win-loss prediction and yeah you can sit there and argue it
00:51and that's what makes talk and radio tv everything so great but it's way too early to do any of that
00:57it's way too early to judge you know what's going on with players um you know I think you get into
01:03you know preseason games like that's a bit especially for a lot of these young guys or guys that maybe
01:09didn't play as much last year let's see their production you know when the bullets are actually
01:13flying in the preseason game and you know I know some people say oh it's not that important but
01:18for a lot of those younger guys and guys that are trying to prove themselves it's life or death
01:22you're fighting for a job in the preseason so you know that'll be a big determination here um you
01:28know and the joint practice is that next week uh one day yeah so they have a wednesday I think
01:33that is the only day they're gonna have the joint with with the redskins or yeah yeah or the commanders
01:36commanders so this is the first time you've gotten down here to check this out but what have you made
01:42of what you heard from about will campbell yesterday maybe being sort of a struggle for the for
01:46the rookie left tackle yeah I mean look it I and I heard people talking about the heat it's been hot
01:52this is one of the hottest summers I've ever remembered but even when I came up here from
01:57Georgia I was like oh I can't wait to have training camp we have northeast yeah in the northeast and we
02:02had two days of Georgia and I was like oh this is going to be nice you know I struggled I was hurting
02:07in the heat and it was only in the 80s then you know I mean look it's so much harder the physical
02:12aspect of the game so much harder the mental aspect of the game is so much harder like I'm not
02:18that worried it's been super hot here about the heat stuff like he's out there finishing practices
02:23that's that's number one it would be a lot different if he was out there for individual and having to go
02:28in every day like he's finishing the practices you know it's going to get better you know he's got a
02:33lot on his plate and you know I think look the up and down of a rookie in training camp is hard
02:39like that was something I rode the wave sometimes and try to tell the young guys like look just
02:44focus on a little thing each day right there's going to be things you're going to be struggling
02:49with if you try to correct it all day one day two you're going to get overwhelmed and you're not
02:54going to get better at anything so you know I heard people saying like uh the inside move was hurting
02:58him a little bit you know I mean so inside moves kill everybody it kills everybody like if you ever
03:03listen to Bill coach the offensive line it was just stay inside out stay inside out and it sounds
03:08pretty easy to do and we Dante used to give Bill hell about it because he'd be like yeah it's just
03:13that easy but you know I mean that is such a big thing because that's the quickest way to the
03:17quarterback is inside if you can run them by and the quarterback knows hey I get to eight yards I got
03:23to move up to five six whatever it is and get the ball out it's going to be fine every time
03:28running by eight nine yards um you know the speed everything the athleticism the power of guys is
03:33so different that he's facing and I'm just glad when I was a rookie I wasn't a first round pick
03:38you know I mean no one really cared what I was doing which was nice what was the toughest part of
03:42the transition for you I mean so much I was thrown in the fire like him very early you know and at the
03:49time we were learning you know day one day two day three it's very systematically installed the
03:56quarterback behind me was on day nine thousand of his installs you know what I mean so that that was
04:02great because he covered up a lot of my mistakes but it also made it very hard on me when he wanted
04:07me to be on the same page as him and I was still on page one you know and but that challenged me to
04:13learn it get better at it you know fix it because there's so much communication between the center and
04:17quarterback especially in Josh's offense um you know and it's it's a probably a more expansive
04:24offense than he's ever ran in his life a hundred percent I mean the checks you know the run checks
04:29pass to run checks you know the different protection calls you know things can change like that on the
04:34fly so you know it's a lot for him to take in um you know Nate Solder told me one time playing tackle
04:41though if he just blocks the d and he's going to be right 90 percent of the time so um you know but
04:46there's something to that but that's that's a real simple way of breaking it down but with Josh being
04:52back and these are the questions I want to ask you so with him being back yeah I know the checks I
04:55know the protection schemes I know uh the formations we're going to talk about all that but
04:59for the benefit of a guy like like Campbell and Drake yeah how important is it for Josh to have
05:05the ability to make sure that it's right well we're not going to leave him on an island yeah
05:09against Max Crosby week one week one I would say too that I love Josh's the way he runs the offensive
05:14system one um I think there's a lot of hoopla that oh it's such a hard system I don't think it's
05:21that hard of a system I think it's a different type of system but Zoe you've been in it you know
05:26everything's designed in that system to have checks balances whatever you want to call it
05:30I never had a west coast offense no I never just called a player yeah no everything I love getting
05:34protection I love getting the uh formation then I love getting and then it's great because it puts
05:38everything all the onus on the quarterback to get everybody in the right position whether it's
05:42having to check a route check a protection you know the quarterback knows his issues and when he
05:48knows his issues then and knows how to fix those issues that allows him to play faster play more
05:53free you know and that'll take some time that doesn't happen overnight especially with a lot of
05:58guys who've never played in this offense but in the Will Campbell O-line aspect whatever it may be
06:03I always thought one thing Josh always did was like all right what is our strength as an offense
06:08what's their weakness as a defense then he boiled it down to all right what's our strength as players
06:14individually like what are we good at what are we not then you know where do we need to protect
06:19ourselves so you got Max Crowsby week one Max is going to line up everywhere on that defense a lot
06:24of times right so they move him around huh he likes he'll he'll try to pick his battles right like some
06:30of those good D linemen like to do that sometimes but so I'm sure he's going to see the rookie over
06:35there he's going to know and he's going to be like that's where I want to go the first play of the game
06:39Josh isn't going to run a 10-step drop Hail Mary pass he's going to ride 34 yeah he's going to set
06:45it up he's going to give him protection you know whether it's chips screens you know quick passes
06:51get get Will in a rhythm get him confident and then you know like I can remember we used to run plays
06:58and let's say you're playing a Max Crowsby right he's only going to play x amount of the snaps all right
07:04he's out this play let's take our shot yeah you know like or whatever it may be he's tired let's pin
07:09him on the field let's move the ball faster you know there's different things you can do to
07:13manipulate game plans and matchups and Josh to me has always done a great job of that I never felt
07:20like he was ever just going to put us out there hang us out to dry and call play because he wanted
07:25to call it maybe there was a play he wanted to get to he was going to wait to the right time to get to
07:29that play so when you guys were operating at your highest level I'm talking about you Josh and Tom
07:33yeah how many checks or how many changes in the course of one play from a maximum sample one two
07:39three what you guys have play clocks going yeah I mean you don't have that much time right I think
07:44maybe if you were an up-tempo offense and we're going straight to the line Tom might do some dummy
07:50calls do something check to something and then you're going and then you know a normal huddle
07:56play you're probably going to make one route adjustment and one protection adjustment and you
08:02know maybe to those two on a play now the route adjustment doesn't affect the line the protection will
08:08you know and then you know maybe sometimes the route's good and it's just the protection so
08:12it really does you know change and flip every play but you know there's there's there's a lot that goes
08:18into it and you know when you get the guys that are rolling and understand it it's it's a well-oiled
08:26machine so you had Josh as an offensive coordinator with Brady with Cam and then with Mac as well how did
08:31you see him evolve the offense to kind of play to the strengths of whichever quarterback that he had
08:36good question yeah I mean I think all right let's look at Cam right and I think you could say Tom
08:41Tom was Tom the whole time but the team changed around him you know I think 18's a great year like
08:46toward the end of that year you know we go to Pittsburgh get beat and we kind of came back and
08:50we were like all right what are our strengths well we got Dwayne Allen he's a great physical tight end
08:54we got Gronk James Devlin we got you know Sonny Michelle Rex Burkhead Burkhead you know we got all these
09:00guys well let's just line up and run the football like played our string and we did that throughout
09:05the rest of the playoffs and and the Super Bowl that year and you know it was pretty good year for us
09:11and then you know I think you look at the year with Cam we ran a lot of QB runs I never ran a QB
09:19run in my six five years yeah I never knew those plays existed in that playbook you know we did a lot
09:26of different things that year with that and then with Mac came in it felt like it went back a little
09:30bit toward the Tom scenario right and you know what is Mac good at all right he ain't gonna run the ball
09:36you know and he's more of a pocket passer let's figure that out and you know on the schematics
09:42of what Josh was telling Mac I'm not really sure I didn't you know know what the quarterback's reads are
09:48but you know Mac had a great year he had a good year go to the playoffs obviously it didn't end how we
09:53want but you know for a team like this this year that's what you think like you get to the playoffs
09:58success improvement you know that's that's that's what you want