New England Patriots
Eagles running back Saquon Barkley came away from Thursday’s joint practice session at Gillette Stadium impressed with how the Patriots are looking.
Saquon Barkley said he does not like joint practices. AP Photo/Steven Senne
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The Patriots have a Super Bowl rematch with Seattle coming up in a couple of weeks, and throughout the summer they’ve talked about their goals of making it back to football’s biggest stage.
There’s a long way to go between now and February’s Super Bowl LXI, and a lot has to go right for New England to make trip to Sofi Stadium for another shot at a championship.
But, Eagles running back Saquon Barkley came away from Thursday’s joint practice session at Gillette Stadium impressed with how the Patriots are looking.
“I’ve got nothing but respect for those guys over there and I feel like they have a good chance of going very far,” said Barkley.
Barkley, a three-time Pro Bowler who helped the Eagles win Super Bowl LIX in 2025, spent two days with his team in Foxborough competing against the Patriots in joint practices.
He mentioned how much he dislikes the joint practices and wished they were shorter.
“I hate joint practice, to be honest. I think one day is good, to be honest” he said. “We play in an ego-filled sport with a lot of men. I’m all about just putting the work in. It’s good to go against someone new. I think we’re definitely at that part of camp where we needed to go against a new face, but honestly I’m not a fan of joint practices.
“More times than not, nothing good comes out of it. When you have the work, it’s good, but then you get the pushing, the shoving and someone says [something] about you … it’s immature when we get to that level. I’ve got to do a better job too because I’m a little troublemaker sometimes but I was good this week.”
There were a few minor dustups on Thursday, but nothing serious enough to get anyone thrown out of practice. Coach Mike Vrabel helped break up a fight on Wednesday that occurred during one of the special teams drills.
The Patriots and Eagles were competitive this week. The starters got a chance to face each other in a somewhat controlled environment without the full contact that is allowed in a preseason game. There were still some frustrations in certain situations, but both teams came out of the week healthy.
New England will host Philadelphia for a preseason game Saturday night before closing out the preseason at Cleveland next Thursday.
Khari A. Thompson
Khari Thompson covers professional sports for Boston.com. Before joining the team in 2022, Khari covered college football for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.
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