FOXBOROUGH -- So Kevin Faulk: Does it look like Tom Brady has changed after taking a year off to rehab his knee and get married?

“Same old Tom,” Faulk said.

The running back then paused for a moment.

“I got married a few years ago and nobody talked about that,” he added with a smile.

With apologies to Faulk, the quarterback and his knee were the story Thursday -- even though Brady is still almost six weeks away from taking his first meaningful snaps, the first day of Patriots’ training camp outside of Gillette Stadium was all about No. 12.

“Tom’s worked very hard to get back out on the field in his rehab and doing what he did in the spring,” said Patriots coach Bill Belichick of Brady, who will give his annual training camp press conference Friday. “He’s certainly a big presence on our team and it’s good to see him back out there.”

In the morning session -- which was cut short by a nasty thunderstorm -- every move he made drew a response from the crowd. Each successful pass sparked applause, including a sweet hookup with Wes Welker in the corner of the end zone before the rains came.

“Throughout the monsoon,” said wide receiver Greg Lewis, “or whatever you want to call it, he was fired up: ‘Let's get up to the huddle, break the huddle, let’s get out there and get this thing right.’”

In the steamy second session, all Brady had to do was appear and he got a reaction -- fans burst into spontaneous applause at the mere sight of Brady shortly after he popped into sight at the top of the stairs leading to the practice field. That was before some impressive connections with Randy Moss.

The quarterback, who will turn 32 next week, practiced with sweatpants throughout the spring, but was in full gear with the rest of the team for both sessions, which partially revealed a sizable black brace on his knee. In seven-on-seven or 11-on-11 drills, he took most of his reps with the No. 1 offense, and it appeared he was moving around without hindrance. He went through all the same drills as the rest of the quarterbacks, and handled a series of drop backs without any trouble.

Never the fastest guy on the planet to begin with, there was no hitch in his step when he ran sprints with his teammates -- or at any other point in the practice. It is important to note that he continued to practice while the rains were coming down in the morning, but looked like he stopped when the weather started to get really bad.

It has been almost 11 months since Kansas City safety Bernard Pollard caved in Brady’s knee in the first half of the 2008 season opener, and it’ll be another six weeks before he sees regular season action again. But in the end, if Thursday was any indication, Patriots fans have every right to feel optimistic about the state of his game.

“He looked like Tom -- nothing special, nothing extra,” Lewis said. “He was just one of the guys out there, trying to get better each and every day, like the other 79 guys that are out there.”

“When he’s out there, he’s out there,” added Faulk, dropping the first Zen quote of the season on the media. “Nobody’s paying attention to him. Nothing different from when he was there last year. He’s just playing football. That’s it.”

Belichick cautioned reading too much into the Dixville Notch returns on the health of his quarterback.

“I think for every player -- certainly quarterbacks, any quarterback, skill position players -- that the start of training camp is the start of the season,” he said. “We’ve only been out there one day. How all that comes together and how each player progresses on an individual basis, that’s something we will monitor as we go along … and I don’t know how that’s going to turn out for anybody, including myself. It’s something you go through a day-by-day process and evaluate it as it comes.”

“But we’ve all got a long way to go.”