“I think it starts with opening up, respecting the players who have been in the league and done it,” Marrone continued. “Of our veteran players, Mo starts most of the career and then we have Mike and Bradbury, our centre-back. So now you have two young guys.
“I’ve always felt that when I played, I learned a lot from the players. I don’t want to say I learned more from the players than I learned from the coaches, but I learned a lot from the players. I think when you have a relationship like that where they really care about each other and they want each other to succeed, and they can communicate and rely on each other, and you see that a lot will Mo, and Mike can be with early, and Mike. Bradbury is spending time with Jared – I know for me as a coach it helps me in what we’re trying to do because they’re always in the locker room together, they’re eating together and doing all of that together.
New England’s offseason transformation required more than just buy-in from all four rookies. Wilson, a standout center at Georgia, would also have to learn a new position: left guard.
That change made his adjustment even more difficult, but would have been exponential if he hadn’t joined this special group, one that Onwenu said grows by sharing wisdom that “brings down” the whole line and includes veterans who “pour back into the younger guys.”
“Coming in and switching to left guard from center in college, it was tough,” Wilson said this week, flashing a sheepish smile. “It was a lot harder than I thought. If you’re an interior offensive lineman, you’ve got to be able to play all three. But it’s not very easy. So I just give these guys a big thank you for helping me get to this point.”
Focused on nurturing each other and becoming dominant in the building, the veteran trio of Bradbury, Moses and Onwenu did not need convincing to help younger teammates adjust. They already knew it was among their most important responsibilities – but understood that they would have to learn from each other along the way.
“I love the game in the middle where everybody’s on the same page,” Bradbury explained Thursday. “And those interactions early in the season definitely looked a little different on the left than on the right. We have almost 20 years of experience on the right and zero on the left. So it was nice to pick the brains of the right side, like ‘what do you need?’ How do you want me to interact with you?” Because in Minnesota, I played with those guys for five-plus years pretty much across the board.
“It was a good chance to prove myself again, reinvent myself, figure out how to interact with the young guys and the old guys. But it’s been fun. Now that we’re 21 games into it, I feel really good. I’d think they do too.”