Gonzalez said that New England is the only place he wanted to play football.
Anthony Gonzalez met with reporters at Gillette Stadium on Tuesday.FOXBOROUGH – It's been a somewhat surreal experience for New England Patriots wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez.
After spending the last five years catching passes for the Indianapolis Colts, one of New England's chief rivals, he darkened the hue of the blue on his uniform by signing with the Patriots in March.
And even though he is exactly where he wants to be, there are little things about the experience that still have him feeling like a traveler in a foreign place.
"It's weird. Like just now, walking down that way," Gonzalez said pointing towards the door the Patriots come out of to take the field at Gillette Stadium. "That was odd, for sure."
Gonzalez is working hard to make his new surroundings feel like home. He arrived in Foxborough on April 1 and has spent the last 10 days conquering the playbook so he can be ready to compete for a job when training camps open.
On Tuesday, he was among a small group of players that worked out at the team's facilities in preparation for the upcoming season. Joining him was backup quarterback Brian Hoyer, who played with Gonzalez and was a year ahead of him at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland.
"When you leave high school you don't expect to reacquaint yourself with your high school quarterback," the 27-year-old Gonzalez said. "It's cool and it's nice to have a familiar face and someone you've known for a while."
Mostly, though, Gonzalez is just happy to have an opportunity to continue playing football and couldn't be happier that it is coming under the only circumstances he desired.
When the Colts declined to offer him a new contract, he targeted New England as his preferred destination after developing a deep admiration for how coach Bill Belichick operates by watching him from afar.
But after being limited to 11 games over the last three seasons due to an array of injuries, he wondered if his phone would ring at all.
"I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't how it worked," Gonzalez, who was a first-round pick out of Ohio State in 2007, said. "I've got some good friends who are very talented football players who still haven't signed on with anybody.
"I didn't know what to expect. The phone call early was great. It was somewhat surprising, but it was the one I was hoping to get, to be honest."
Gonzalez says that he is fully healthy now and that he no longer dwells on the misfortune that plagued him the last few years.
His only focus now is to make sure that he knows how to perform his job so that he can begin developing chemistry with quarterback Tom Brady when the two hit the field together for the first time.
"I want to make sure that when it's time to get out on the field and go through things there's no hesitancy mentally," Gonzalez said. "I know that if I don't know exactly what I'm doing, there's going to be problems for me."
He doesn't foresee that being an issue coming from Indianapolis' equally complex offense, and also isn't overly concerned with meeting the expectations that Brady holds for his receivers after catching 99 passes for 1,307 yards in 39 games playing with former Colts quarterback Peyton Manning.
In fact, he'd have it no other way.
"I was joking with my friends; I have a very strict Hall of Famer only policy," Gonzalez said. "Just stay with that group. It's good, it's wonderful, obviously. Quarterbacks make receivers look very good. Hopefully I can get some opportunities with him."