Tight end Marcus Pollard hauls in a pass despite the defensive efforts of Mark Dillard during yesterday afternoon’s session.

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The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

FOXBORO — Patriots owner Robert Kraft has a good feeling about this season.

“I think every owner is pretty excited about their team at this time of year,” Kraft said. “If they’re not, they’re in deep trouble. On this team, we have a great core of veterans. I like what I’ve seen so far in practice.”

The Patriots became the first team to finish a 16-game regular season undefeated last year, but their hopes of winning Super Bowl XLII were crushed by the New York Giants, who beat them, 17-14.

Kraft believes that the Patriots have the talent to get back to the Super Bowl this season.

“Things happen that in this league that are out of your control, but barring some injury, we should be OK,” Kraft said. “Our objective is to make the playoffs. I think we’ve improved our defense. If our offense can stay anywhere near where it was [we’ll be fine]. I think that we’ve added good folks for our special teams so we should be a very competitive team.”

Kraft said that it’s going to be hard to be better than last year, but the Patriots are going to give it a shot.

“We just need them to be good enough to make the playoffs and then we all know that no one knows what happens [in the playoffs],” Kraft said. “We have to win our division. That’s how we will assure ourselves [a playoff berth]. But it looks like everyone in our division has gotten stronger. It will be a competitive year. It’s an exciting time for us.”

Kraft said that from talking to his Patriots, he knows they are confident.

“I don’t think it’s a chip on their shoulder, I think they believe they’re good,” Kraft said. “They just have to work hard, stay within their assignments and know they are not going to make mistakes.”

The biggest thing that Kraft learned from the devastating Super Bowl loss was, “to stay on top, you can’t lose that edge and you have to keep working at it. When every team plays us, their best game comes out and everyone is trying to either rate our players, our coaches, disrupt us any way they can to try to knock us down so it’s very important that our key managers and players all stay together, stay focused, and don’t let anyone get in the middle of us and try to split us.”

Here and there

The Patriots held one on-field training camp session yesterday. Here are some highlights:

•As to whom was and wasn’t there, the biggest absence was quarterback Tom Brady, who in all likelihood, just got the day off. S James Sanders, TE David Thomas and T Anthony Clement missed practice for the second straight day, while T Matt Light, CB Jason Webster and LB Vince Redd missed for the fourth straight day.

•Brandon Meriweather is showing that his offseason work on ball-catching is paying off. He caught an interception on the first day of camp, and today juggled but still pulled in a ball initially tipped by Tank Williams in 11-on-11 work. The ball was thrown by Matt Cassel, who took the first team snaps in Brady’s absence.

•On that same play, Fernando Bryant was hurt. He lay on the field for a moment and then walked off on his own power. After testing his leg (it looked like it might have been his knee), backpedaling, jogging and cutting, he returned to the field for the rest of the session.

•Randy Moss made a tremendous grab, a one-handed snare that he sort of tipped to himself, beating Mike Richardson and Williams, who were in close coverage.

Quick kicks

Former Pats offensive lineman Joe Andruzzi attended the practice. Andruzzi, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins’ lymphoma last year, was with his children. His cancer is in remission and he looks well. … Moss made the day for a group of kids, likely a camp group, from New London, Conn. at the start of the session. When they spotted Moss, they began screaming, then all chanted his name in unison. Well-known for his affection for children, Moss approached the group and signed a few autographs, causing a commotion and surprising the security staff. … The Patriots changed the start time for today’s second practice: the first will still begin at 8:45 a.m., with the second beginning at 4 p.m., not 2:30 p.m.

smanza@projo.com