The Patriots aren’t certain right now whether Tom Brady will be available for the first four weeks of the 2016 season, which means that they have to prepare to open the year with Jimmy Garoppolo as their starting quarterback.
They’ve been doing that during offseason work with Garoppolo splitting first-team reps with Brady during last week’s minicamp. Tight end Rob Gronkowski wasn’t on the field for those practices, but he was back working on Monday and shared his thoughts about Garoppolo after the session came to a close.
“He’s doing great, definitely,” Gronkowski said in comments distributed by the team. “You can see a huge development over the last two years in the way he handles the offense now. He’s doing a great job going out there, listening to coaches and just working together with the whole team.”
All the usual caveats about practices in June apply to anything having to do with Garoppolo, but he’s been in the system for more than two years at this point and that should provide some level of comfort about his ability to run the offense even if the Patriots would prefer sticking with Brady for all their games this season.
