Bill Belichick: 'New England Patriots must develop mental toughness'

Bill Belichick has said that the New England Patriots are working on their mental toughness during training camp.

The AFC East champions play their first pre-season game next Friday, when they travel to Lincoln Financial Field to face the Philadelphia Eagles.

Speaking at a press conference, the team's head coach said: "Hopefully we can finish up another chunk of our installation, keep working on our fundamentals and things we've already installed and just start doing a little more team work and have things come together a little bit more so we're ready to go down and compete against the Eagles next week.

"Just grinding through it, just grinding through camp. We add more every day and of course [the players are] responsible for all the stuff that we had in plus all the new stuff, all the multiples that can happen.

"It gets a little bit harder each day and of course physically there's the wearing down effect, physically and mentally too. It's what the team needs to develop mental toughness and staying power and to get into a regular season football kind of mode."

The Patriots face the Buffalo Bills in the first week of the regular season.