FOXBORO — Tom Brady left no doubt as to what he thinks about the return of Logan Mankins.

The quarterback used the word “great” nine times in response to a question about what it means to have the Pro Bowl left guard back in the lineup.

“It’s great. It’s great. He’s such a great guy. He’s a great player,” Brady said Wednesday morning. “He’s coming in with a great attitude. I’ve had a chance to talk to him over the last few months. He’s been a great contributor to this team and to this organization. You can never have too many great football players or too many great teammates, so it’s great to have him back.”

After staying away from spring workouts, organized team activities, training camp and the first eight weeks of the regular season, Mankins returned to the Patriots officially on Wednesday.

“I'm not going to get into why I came back now,” Mankins said. “I'm not looking at it as if I'm early. I'm eight weeks late.”

The left guard signed his tender, worth roughly $1.54 million, and reported for his first day of practice on Wednesday.

“I’m happy to be back. I’ve got a lot of friends here,” said Mankins, sporting a Fu-Manchu and Patriots cap for his six-minute press conference with the media. “A lot of guys I have a lot of respect for and love playing with, so it was good to see everyone again. I let a bunch of guys know the day before I was coming back so everybody was pretty happy I was coming back, so I knew I had a lot of support.

“It’s pretty special to play football,” he added. “You become really good friends with all those guys. Any time you line up with someone and you see all the work they put in and you put in together and you go out there and do it together, that’s pretty special. So I missed doing that with these guys, because I’m pretty close with all these guys. We’re all friends.”

Mankins said he stayed local throughout the offseason, “hanging out, playing a lot of golf. Hanging out with my family a lot. I’ve spent a lot of time with them.” As far as training, he said that he’s been “training quite a bit, so we’ll see today how it goes.”

“I’ve played football a long time and I’ve been through a lot of offseasons, so I took this offseason like I take every other one, and I did the things that I’ve been taught through the years,” he added. “I didn’t hit anyone or do anything like that, so that’ll all be new today.”

Mankins was originally drafted by the Patriots in the first round of the 2005 draft out of Fresno State. During his five seasons in New England, he’s started 80 regular-season games and nine postseason games. He was named to the Pro Bowl in 2007 and 2009 and was selected to the Associated Press All-Pro second team in 2007 and 2009.

However, his return heralds the end of a lengthy and contentious contract disagreement, one of the most bitter in franchise history. The 6-foot-4, 310-pounder would have been an unrestricted free agent under the rules of the old Collective Bargaining Agreement. But when the owners opted out of the old deal, it meant only players with six seasons of professional experience in the NFL were granted unrestricted status. That meant Mankins was still bound to the Patriots and forced to sign a free agent tender if he wanted to play.

But he didn’t sign, and in June, he accused the Patriots of not sticking to their word. In addition, there was a report that the two sides were near a deal earlier this regular season — a contract in the same neighborhood as the deal signed by New Orleans offensive lineman Jahri Evans, which was for seven years and $56.7 million — but it fell apart over the fact that Mankins wouldn’t issue a public apology.

Mankins, who returned early enough to qualify for the amount of service time needed to become an unrestricted free agent in 2011, said on Wednesday that he’s not worried about any lingering long-term resentment from management over what he did.

“I’ve talked to everyone here, and we're all on the same page right now,” he said. “I don’t see why there should be any problems.”

He was less clear, however, about what the holdout accomplished. When asked if it was “productive” for him to stay away, he shrugged.

“I don’t know. We’ll find out.”

Did you get what you wanted from it?

“What I wanted from it?” he asked. “Not at the moment.”

By the sound of things, Mankins’ fellow linemen certainly got what they wanted on Wednesday.

“Any time you can get a player back of Logan’s caliber — smart, tough — the more guys we can have like that in the locker room, especially on the line, it’s a good thing,” said center Dan Koppen.

“It’s great to have him back. A guy that’s put in a lot of work around here. It’s always good to have a guy like that back,” said left tackle Matt Light. ”He looks good, man. Logan always keeps himself in good shape so no worries on that end.”

In his place, the Patriots have used Dan Connolly at left guard, and while Connolly has certainly played well, it only figures to be a matter of time before Mankins returns to the starting lineup. Mankins took time out on Wednesday to single out Connolly for the work he did over the first eight weeks of the season.

“I know one thing — I had a lot more faith in Dan Connolly than you guys did before the season started,” Mankins told reporters. “Dan’s a great friend of mine and he’s done a great job. It was fun watching him play and getting the opportunity to play and prove everyone that he could do it.”

After seven games in the starting lineup, Connolly now faces an uncertain future.

“All I can do is prepare myself for every game just like I have,” he said on Wednesday. “There’s no telling what’s going to happen. Once the game starts I may be right back in there. So I’ve just got to prepare myself for all those positions.”

Mankins, who wouldn’t put a timetable on his return to game action — he said things are “day by day” right now — said he’s happy to be back.

“I love football and I wanted to be out there playing, but we had some other things going on,” he said. “But now, I’m back and ready to go.”