Professor

Fresh start for Gay | New England Patriots | projo.com | The Providence Journal

excerpt:

FOXBORO — When he was able to get back on the field, it wasn’t his teammates Randall Gay felt he needed to prove something to after spending nearly two years on the shelf with injuries.

It was himself.

After an ankle injury limited — and then ended — his 2005 season, and a troubling hamstring landed him on injured reserve last season, Gay has spent months rehabbing to play again.

Once his body was ready, he had some work to do on his mind.

“That’s what the offseason was for, all the OTAs (organized team activities),” the Louisiana native said. “I was out there trying to prove to myself, trying to see how I was feeling, and after those couple weeks of OTAs my confidence came back and I’m like, ‘All right, you’re not as rusty as you thought you were.’ Now I’m just trying to get better every day.”

Though it must seem like a lifetime ago that the unheralded rookie started in Super Bowl XXXIX opposite Asante Samuel, Gay wasn’t worried about his teammates thinking he was no longer a player on the rise.

“My teammates know when I come out here I’m coming to work. I’ve had a couple of bad breaks the last few years, but I’m out here now and I’m coming to work, coming to work every day prepared and trying to get better,” he said.

Gay — known to teammates and friends as “Blue” — announced he was back to the entire team yesterday, jumping a route and picking off Tom Brady during an 11-on-11 drill. Brady’s pass, for Benjamin Watson, ended up in Gay’s hands, something the quarterback was none too pleased with, shouting an expletive as he snapped off his helmet.

Despite his injury-riddled history, the Patriots wanted to hang on to Gay a bit longer. He was a restricted free agent, and New England signed him to a one-year, $1.3-million tender. Though he could field contract offers from other teams, if the Pats didn’t match a contract amount, the team that signed Gay would have owed New England a second-round draft pick.

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