Vince Wilfork Q&A - he's ready

Photo from NESN
Training camp opened today, which means football season is almost here. I know, I'm excited too. The first day of training camps means teams together and it also means plenty of quotes coming from players, whether interesting or not.

Vince Wilfork sat down with Patriots.com to discuss, among other things, his achilles injury and him being a mentor to some of the young guys on defense, including first round pick Dominique Easely.

On his Achilles:

I feel fine. Throughout all season and just working hard, I’m pretty sure there’s going to still be some stuff that I may need to do so, so far so good. I’m not looking back. I’m looking forward. I’m just excited to be here.

I’m looking forward. Right now, I just feel good. I don’t know what’s going to happen further down the road but right now I feel good. I’m happy to be out here with my teammates.

He also talked about some of the additions to the defense, saying everyone will have to put in the work if they really want to gel as a defense. He also talked about the general buzz and excitement around the first day of training camp, as it marks the official beginning the season.

He also spoke to having to sit out and watch last season, saying "the past is the past."

No, I’m a big believer in the past is the past. I don’t dwell on the past; I can just tell you about now. Right now, it’s the start of camp and we’re all excited. There are things we can learn from the past, but at the same time, they’re things we just have to do better. Whatever it may be, and Bill knows what it is, but for us right now at the start of camp coming in, it’s ground zero. We had some camp in mini-camp, but now it’s training camp. Things are going a little bit more now. Soon we’ll be playing the first preseason game, and before you know it you’ll be headed to your third preseason game and the start of the season. Every day is critical for us to get better as a team. Not individuals, but as a team, we have to get better, and that’s always our goal. That’s one of the things we always talk about, taking things that we did in the classroom and coming out here and putting them on the field. Today was the start of that. If we continue to do that, I think we’ll be okay. If there are times that we don’t do that, when we come out here and we don’t do what we need to do, then it becomes a problem. So we try to minimize the problems.

We're all ready for the season to start so we can see just how good this defense will be, with the additions of Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner and the return of Vince himself. Health is really the only question right now - the talent level shouldn't be in doubt. With Revis and Browner in the back and Wilfork anchoring the front line, the Pats have a tough defense, at least on paper.