Christian Gonzalez sees ‘little things’ to clean up after return

Thursday’s preseason opener marked the first game action for Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez since a shoulder injury brought his rookie season to an abrupt close last October.

Gonzalez said he enjoyed being back on the field with his teammates during the game.

“It’s football. It’s what I missed,” Gonzalez said. “I just was excited and happy to be back out there with the guys.”

It was a quiet night for Gonzalez, who did not record a tackle during his limited action.

“Small sample size, but there’s always things you can clean up,” Gonzalez said. “So many little things you can clean up. So we’ll watch the plays and learn and get back to it.”

The Patriots held the Panthers to three points in the preseason opening win. New England will take on Philadelphia next Thursday after joint practice on Tuesday.

“It’s the first one. We’ve still got two more weeks of it,” Gonzalez said. “It’s exciting because it’s the first time you finally get to go against another team. We’ve been going against our offense since the spring, so it’s a lot of fun to be able to get out there, show what you’ve learned and show the world what you’ve been working on.”

With Jonathan Jones and Marcus Jones out, Marco Wilson, and Shaun Wade started at cornerback along with Gonzalez.

“It’s been fun out there with him,” Gonzalez said of Wilson. “He comes to work every day with a smile. He’s someone that has been in the league so that even helps me to be able to be able to learn from him. There’s things he sees and then things I see and we build off of each other for sure.”

Although he had been out for a while, Gonzalez says he can’t wait to dive right into joint practices and face the Eagles next week.

“Your mind is always right,” Gonzalez said. “It’s football. That’s how it is.”