In a lot of ways, Stephon Gilmore made the right decision on Monday.

It poured for two hours at the practice fields behind Gillette Stadium, and who the heck would want to practice in that?

But what looked like 60 or so of his teammates did just that yesterday late morning into early afternoon, including quarterback Cam Newton, who was able to throw despite a hand injury that was treated as a catastrophe by all reports last week. Throw, but not quite throw accurately. But he was first up in all the drills.

And rookie savior quarterback Mac Jones was slinging it under the watchful eye of Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, throwing during the 11 on 11 drills into tight coverage, fairly accurately we might add. He looked like he knew what he was doing.

Gilmore, obviously, knows what he’s doing. It’s an old fashioned NFL holdout, and we don’t see those very often anymore. He’s only going to make just over $7 million this year – money was advanced last year for his 2019 Defensive Player of the Year Award –, and this is the final year of his deal.

The thought months ago was the Patriots would have dealt him by now. But after going on a huge spending spree to signal that the Patriots are going for it all once again, would it be smart to deal away your No. 1 corner? Probably smarter to extend him a year or two, if possible.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick doesn’t want this to be a big deal. His comments on Monday morning – his pressers are conveniently before practice – glossed over the attendance issue.

“We’re working through some travel arrangements, so we’ll see what the full level of participation is here today and for this week,” Belichick said, “but I’m sure we’ll have a pretty full roster.”

Gilmore wasn’t at the voluntary OTAs either, but Belichick glossed over all of that.

“They just got in here a little while ago,” he said Monday morning of the players. “I’m not sure if everybody is here. We didn’t take attendance at the meeting but we’ll find out who’s here and who isn’t soon enough. That includes the players that were here last week and the players that weren’t here last week and everything else.”

Belichick doesn’t want a major problem. Gilmore has been pretty quiet about the whole thing, and that’s his nature. The guess is if he continues to stay quiet, not a lot of social media, etc., between now and training camp, he’ll get an extension. If he talks and posts cryptic messages, he’s out the door. But the Patriots know they’re a better team with a healthy Gilmore – he had surgery on a torn quad that he suffered in December – than without him. J.C. Jackson is not a No. 1 corner.

And of course the other question is, is Newton a No. 1 quarterback? Is anyone in the QB room? Jarrett Stidham made some good throws,

Meanwhile, Michael Jackson, sr. and Jalen Mills played corner in practice, often effectively. Receiver Nelson Agholor had a case of the dropsies a couple of times, but with the wet weather, he wasn’t the only one.

Meanwhile, Stidham looked fairly good, but perhaps not as good as Jones. It’s all subjective and not much means much at this point.

“Like with anything in life, the more you do something over and over, the more you hear something over and over, the more comfortable you’ll be doing that,” Stidham said. “My approach hasn’t changed at all. Drafting Mac hasn’t changed my approach. … My mindset has been the same. It definitely fires me up. Last year bringing in Cam before training camp fired me up.”

Really? If he was fired up last year, you’d hate to see him when he’s disinterested.

But the Gilmore situation takes us away from the QB scenario. You hope the Patriots aren’t disinterested, and want to keep their star corner for a couple more seasons to go with the free agents they’ve signed. We’ll likely know by late July.

Blame it on the rain? Belichick tried to, but we all know better. So does Gilmore.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

Newsletter