Patriots Country

Strange Strategy: Patriots OL Reveals Reason For Not Watching Movies on Planes

New England Patriots second-year offensive lineman Cole Strange stopped watching movies on team flights after a gentle nudge from an assistant coach.

Richie Whitt

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A year ago before the NFL Draft most of us weren't familiar with Cole Strange. Now, even after his rookie season with the New England Patriots, he remains mostly a mystery.

Strange came from Chattanooga. Shocked the league when drafted by Bill Belichick 29th overall. Sported looks ranging from clean-shaven, to mustache to full beard. Made all 17 starts and played almost 1,000 snaps at left guard in 2022, improving enough to allow only one sack over the final eight weeks.

But thanks to a recent interview with German media - the Patriots will "host" a game there this season - we learned a little more about Strange off the field. As in, he apparently speaks a smidge of German (despite somehow at the age of 24 never being outside of the United States), knows the name "Sebastian Vollmer" and doesn't fancy himself a picky eater.

Most telling from the brief sit-down, however, was Strange's revelation about why he doesn't watch movies on the Patriots' team airplane. Apparently he learned a hard lesson on the flight to Miami for last season's opener against the Dolphins.

“The first game we were playing, I watched ‘Avatar’ because it was like a four-hour flight or something," Strange said. "And then one of the coaches got onto me and was like, because I had missed a single play in practice or messed up, and he was like, ‘If you weren’t wasting your time watching movies, you wouldn’t miss these plays.’ So I was like, ‘Alright, I’m never watching another movie again.’"

Though Strange didn't identify which coach chided him, the best guess is offensive line assistant Matt Patricia.

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Richie Whitt
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