Building relationships and rapport was a difficult task for athletes joining new teams in 2020.
NFL and college football players were impacted by this during the offseason, with the inability to put together training camp and preseason practice opportunities. When the New England Patriots signed Cam Newton, the coronavirus pandemic was new and any form of in-person contact was extremely limited.
Therefore, Bill Belichick and Newton had to begin their relationship through virtual means. It made it difficult to get on the same page and work on the intricate details that would lead to success. Newton reflected on that lack of connection while reflecting on his season on Thursday.
“My only regret was I wish I had more time to dissect what I was actually getting in to,” Newton said, transcribed by WEEI. “I’ve been in this league long enough to kind of always downplay, like, ‘Man, we don’t need preseason. We don’t need OTAs. We’re ready to go.’ Yeah, maybe if I was still in the system I came from. But learning this system, you just need more time, you need more real reps to kind of go through because there’s only but so much you can kind of make up.
“You could put the eyelashes on. You could do your eyebrows. You could put your lipstick on. The mascara and the lip liner. But sooner or later, it’s going to rain and the real true you will show. And unfortunately it showed — not necessarily in ways that I wanted to.”
Belichick heard Newton’s comments and reiterated that sentiment while speaking with reporters on Friday.
“I agree with what Cam said, I wish we had more time together,” Belichick said. “I wish as a team we had more time with our team and with a lot of guys, especially new players. Yeah, I agree with that.”
But for now, Belichick is onto the New York Jets.
“Again at this point, trying to do the best I can to help our team prepare for the Jets and finish the season on a good note,” Belichick said. “Again, these guys have really competed well in practice this week. They’ve tried to get ready like they have all year long and I want to do the best that I can to prepare our team to give us every opportunity to perform well on Sunday.
“So, all your questions about some other year and going forward and all that, we’ll deal with that in due time. But right now, really want us to go out and perform well on Sunday and that’s really what everyone is trying to do here, which that’s what I want and I expect and that is what I respect about this group is the way they have approached things like that.”
As for the team’s future, there’s very little certainty for anything.
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