Photos: Celebrating The Start Of A New Season At Robert Kraft’s Annual Team Cookout On Cape Cod

The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl last season, and they are off to another championship win. Patriots players, coaches, and other names related to the organization arrived in Cape Cod for the annual team cookout.

It’s an event you don’t want to miss. If you are a player, of course.

The Patriots keep making headlines. Their roster is unrecognizable. New players, retired players… But Tom Brady is still here.

When it comes to Brady, his contract is still a big deal.

“It’s really the reality for most guys in the NFL, I don’t want to think I’m any different than anyone else,” Brady said. “Football is a tough business. It’s a production business. I’m ready to go this year, and that’s really what matters, and that’s where my focus is. It’s a unique situation I’m in  – 20^th year with the same team and 42 years old. Pretty much uncharted territory for everybody, and I’m going to go out there and be the best I can this year and see what happens.

“I’ve had such a great experience over a lot of years. I appreciate this team and the opportunity it gave me in 2000. I play for a great coach in Coach Belichick, and Josh [McDaniels, the Patriots’ offensive coordinator,] and I have a great working relationship. I love Mr. Kraft and his family. We’ve had just incredible success. Hopefully we can keep it going.”

Brady will have to enter the new season without Rob Gronkowski.

“To replace great players, it’s not like you just pick another one off the tight end tree,” Brady said of his favorite tight end. “You can’t just go out back. You’ve got to find guys that come in and want to put the work in and want to try and contribute.”

Julian Edelman is here, too.

“I’m extremely excited for the new year,” he said before suffering his thumb injury. “This is a new team. With training camp coming up, this is kind of like when school’s back in session. We had summer break. You get to see the fellas. But this is where you learn the team, learn (about) each other, become accountable for each other, and work hard together, and create a consistency together. This is the beginning shape form of your team, these next few weeks. It’s a crucial point. We put a lot of hard work in during the spring. It’s the next step toward playing with other teams. So it’s definitely exciting.”