Bill Belichick has said that joint practices during training camp helped him to evaluate his players ahead of the 2013 NFL season.

The New England Patriots shared a practice field with the Philadelphia Eagles and Tampa Bay Buccaneers ahead of their first two pre-season games.

The Patriots head coach told reporters: "I think that those opportunities can be good and I thought that our weeks with Philadelphia and Tampa were very productive for us.

"I think it helped us in the pre-season games as well because at least the players were prepared going into those games rather than, I mean, we wouldn't have seen anything from the Eagles.

"It's easier to evaluate than trying to evaluate guys when you feel like they really don't know what to do because we haven't done a good enough job of preparing them. I'd say that definitely part of that was also with the Tampa situation as well."

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