07/30/2003

FOXBORO -- An NFL training camp doesn't just assault a player's body. It works over his mind, too.

Over the weekend, cornerback Tyrone Poole, who signed with the Patriots as a free agent in March, showed that.

"I am not totally focused because my family is not going to be here with me this year," Poole told Patriots.com. "So with the complex defense that they have here, it's kind of a deterring thing to have half of your focus somewhere else and some of your focus in another place. . . .

"It is kind of difficult when you are focused with your family, your concerns with your family, and things like that. The majority of the guys here, I don't know how many of the guys are actually married and have kids and things like that, but when that part of you is not going to be with you, then it makes you re-evaluate a whole lot of situations."

Poole's native Georgia has been about 900 miles from Foxboro for a long time. Unless he thought his plane took off in Atlanta and circled that airport for two hours before landing, Poole should have understood that Massachusetts was a little ways from home when he first visited the team.

But the second he signed his four-year, $8-million deal with the Patriots and became their employee, the team had a right to expect certain things of him. Two of the most important things were focus and effort.

Yesterday, Poole said he'd had a bit of an epiphany.

"That's ancient history now," Poole said when asked about his turmoil. "Everything is A-OK. My wife and I talked and we decided to go ahead and make it work. Today seems like the first day of training camp. I talked to coach (Bill) Belichick about what my wife and I talked about and I said I'd devote all my attention and abilities to the Patriots."

So far in this training camp, Poole's been getting most of his reps with the second team. Considering both the incumbent starters -- Ty Law and Otis Smith -- are out with injuries, Poole (a nine-year veteran) should be running with the first team instead of with rookies Eugene Wilson and Asante Samuel. But he said during mini-camp that the team's defense is complex, and he said the same thing yesterday.

"Every week of camp is hard," he acknowledged. "The more years you get in the NFL you start to think training camp is useless. But coming to a new system, they do things differently from what I was taught. There's a learning process. By no means am I up to speed. I had a lot of things on my mind previously, so I wasn't able to focus like I should have."

The Patriots were understanding about Poole's desire to be with his family during the offseason, and he worked out on his own, with Belichick's blessing.

But he'd clearly be a better employee now if he had been in the office more often before training camp.

As laudable as Poole's dedication to family is, dozens of players and coaches in every one of the NFL's 32 camps have to come to an uneasy truce with the fact that -- at this time of year -- they aren't going to see their wives and kids for a while. Poole's been in the league since 1995.

There's little doubt that among the 80 or so players in camp, many are having family withdrawals. Free-agent safety Chris Akins, for example, is married to a woman who's an MP currently stationed in Kuwait City. He's got two kids.

How's he doing with it?

"Chris is all business on the field," Belichick said this week. "He's intense at meetings and on the field. Intense, alert, wants to get it right, but he plays with a good attitude."

When asked about Poole's turmoil, Belichick said, "As far as his personal and family situation are concerned, I don't think I should comment on that. He's the one involved in that. As far as being aware of it, I've talked to Ty Poole more than any other player on this team this offseason. We'll just have to see how that's resolved."

Belichick almost never directly criticizes a player. But he's an expert at indirectly shining a light on his feelings by giving a pointed answer about something or someone else and hoping dots get connected.

It's impossible to tell whether he was doing that when talking about Akins and then Poole, but Akins's situation does provide a simple contrast in the way the two employees are approaching their jobs. Personal business should not encroach on one's ability to work unless there are dire circumstances. Missing one's family generally doesn't qualify.

Since it took over three years ago, the Patriots football staff has made it a point to say that it wants to acquire players for whom football is important.

They're not asking for football players who don't care how things are going at home, but they are asking for players to focus on football first during certain parts of the year. That's not easy. It's an encroachment on their lives. But the team also pays a lot of money for that commitment, and if a player can't make that, he shouldn't agree to a contract.

Everybody misses their family when they go to work. Executives. Cafeteria workers. Thieves. There's no problem with that. But there's a time in football season when players are asked to put on a big-boy face, maybe tape a family picture to their wristband and do the job they're being paid to do. And that time is now.

The Patriots are in the somewhat uncomfortable position of hoping one of their prized free agents is really ready to do that.