Wednesday’s training camp joint practice with the Las Vegas Raiders seemed to a be a perfect summation of what this summer has been like for the Patriots’ offense. Things started rough, but late in practice they started to find more success, scoring touchdowns on two of their three final drives in 11-on-11s.

“I think we have — we’ve done it in multiple ways, it’s just finding it in a game and finding our rhythm and that’s going to just happen over time,” quarterback Mac Jones said when asked about the progress of the offense after practice. “It’s a long season and we’re not really worried about the future.”

As Jones alluded to, the team doesn’t seem to be worried about the long-term outlook of their rebuilt offense. Multiple reports throughout the offseason has indicated the team doesn’t believe there are any foundational issues in what they are trying to do, even with the massive task of installing a new offensive system, with an almost entirely rebuild coaching staff after Josh McDaniels took most of his offensive assistants with him when he left for the Raiders back in the spring.

On Wednesday, we got a more direct glimpse into that approach from Jones, who shared part of Bill Belichick’s overarching message to the offensive unit.

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“Coach Belichick has laid it out for us, that we’re going to focus on, ‘alright, how can we just play better? How can we just fundamentally be better.’ Like for me, just throw to the open guy wherever that may be. It could be deep, short, in the middle, it doesn’t really matter. For the offensive line – pad level, and things like that,” Jones explained. “It’s a lot of fundamental stuff that — if you just fix those, it really doesn’t matter what you do X’s and O’s wise, you should be able to compete with the players that we have and all the talent that we have.”

It’s clear the Patriots believe in the talent they have offensively. Their wide receiver room is the deepest they’ve had in at least five years, and they clearly feel comfortable enough up front to discuss trading starting right tackle Isaiah Wynn. If what Jones relayed from Belichick is indicative of the overall thought of the team, fixing the offense is just a matter of getting all of those pieces to fit together.

The process of working to get things right is about to fundamentally change. After Friday’s preseason game and Tuesday’s final roster cuts, the approach of the practices goes from evaluation to preparation as the team gets ready for its Week 1 game against the Miami Dolphins. That means closed sessions (not open to the public or media) with more of a focus on game-planning and working on specifically what the team plans to run, as opposed to some more experimental concepts that may be tested during camp.

Alex Barth is a writer and digital producer for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Looking for a podcast guest? Let him know on Twitter @RealAlexBarth or via email at abarth@985TheSportsHub.com.