If you’ve been to Foxboro for any of the Patriots’ 25 training camp practices over the last two-plus weeks, it’s been a hard sight to miss.

Most of the time, whenever quarterback Tom Brady has been watching from the sidelines, rookie tight end Aaron Hernandez has been next to him. The two have appeared to engage in some animated sideline conversations — actually, more often than not, it’s been Brady talking and Hernandez listening.

It isn’t the first time Brady has reached out to a young tight end. He was especially proactive in helping former Patriots’ Daniel Graham and Benjamin Watson early in their careers. And while Graham and Watson ultimately failed to produce the sort of numbers in the passing game New England would have liked, Hernandez says the me-and-my-shadow routine is paying off.

“He just teaches me — along with the receivers like Moss and [Torry Holt] — teaches me little moves on routes, how to change stuff up,” Hernandez said of the quarterback. “It’s helped me a lot so far.

“I just come out here every day and try to get open,” Hernandez added. “He’s such a great quarterback. If I’m open, he’ll find me.”

Hernandez brings an interesting dynamic to the New England offense. The 6-foot-1, 250-pounder is built like a big receiver than a tight end, and throughout the two-plus weeks of training camp, he’s been moved all over the field. The Patriots have lined him up in the slot, they’ve split him wide, as well as flush against the tackle — on one play during the joint practices with New Orleans, he delivered a big block as a fullback that sprung running back Laurence Maroney for a big gain.

That sort of versatility served him well at Florida, but that’s not the only reason he’s had early success in the New England offense, according to Patriots director of player personnel Nick Caserio.

“I think Aaron is an athletic guy,” Caserio said. “He’s fast. He’s got good quickness. He’s got good vertical speed. He gets into the defense quickly. He catches the ball well. So I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a matter of schematics. I think it’s just a matter of a particular player’s skills and then what he’s showing on the field were some of the things that we saw from him as a player at Florida.”

“It's similar because it's a spread offense,” Hernandez said of the similarities between the New England offense and what he ran as a collegian at Florida. “We have a lot of stuff that's similar to Florida, but a lot of the stuff is also different, a lot of the language to it. If you study it, it all comes easy.”

The tight end position underwent a massive offseason overhaul. Gone are veterans Watson and Chris Baker, and Hernandez is one of two rookie tight ends on this year’s team. While the Florida product has already carved out a role as a pass-catcher, second-round pick Rob Gronkowski is bigger than Hernandez, and is more of a blocker/receiver hybrid. They join veteran Alge Crumpler (more of a pure blocker at this point in his career) who was acquired in the offseason.

Crumpler knows a thing or two about succeeding in the NFL, and he already likes the way the two rookies have performed.

“Both come in and have done what’s asked of them — we’re a new room,” Crumpler said of Hernandez and Gronkowski. “We’re all getting adjusted. We’re all going to have our high moments and our low moments. For the most part, we'll just continue to try to make progress every single day.”

“They know a lot more now than they did a couple of weeks ago,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said of the rookies. “They still got a long way to go. One good thing about our tight ends is that they’ve been out there every day. They’ve been healthy, they’ve worked hard, they’ve competed to work better. Aaron [Hernandez] and Rob Gronkowski, Rob Myers, those guys made some mistakes, like we all do. But they’ve learned and it seems like they’re doing things better the second or third times around.

“A lot of times, it’s a case where they haven’t seen it and they’re not exactly sure what to do, but as they see it and understand it; then it happens smoother the next time.”

In the preseason opener, all three tight ends started as New England went with a one-back set (BenJarvus Green-Ellis) and single receiver (Randy Moss) to open the game, and Hernandez led all tight ends with three receptions for 26 yards, including a 21-yarder.

While none of Hernandez’s receptions were on balls thrown by Brady — the quarterback was out of the game by the middle of the second quarter— it was a solid baptism for Hernandez, who said his first NFL experience was about what he expected.

“Definitely what I expected. It’s a fast game,” he said. “Everybody is good, and you’ve got to go out there and compete.”