FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Trey Flowers signed with the New England Patriots on Tuesday, returning to the team where he played his first four NFL seasons, including on two Super Bowl winning teams.

The defensive end was placed on injured reserve after playing in four games for the Miami Dolphins last season and was an unrestricted free agent.

The 29-year-old Flowers has started 64 of 79 regular-season games over eight seasons since the Patriots drafted him out of Arkansas in the fourth round of the 2015 draft.

All nine of his postseason starts were with the Patriots, who won Super Bowls in 2016 and 2018 and played in the game in 2017.

He left the Patriots as a free agent in 2019 and signed with the Detroit Lions. Injuries limited him to 29 games over three seasons with the Lions. The Dolphins signed him last August, and he hurt his foot in the fourth game and didn’t play again.

AT THIS POINT, it would be a surprise to see quarterback Mac Jones and several projected Patriots starters play in the team’s preseason opener on Thursday night.

That was one big takeaway from Day 12 of Patriots training camp.

In Tuesday’s session, the Patriots started practice with Bailey Zappe, Trace McSorley and Malik Cunningham taking the first quarterback reps in full-team drills. Jones was off to the side in a non-competitive 7-on-7 period where he completed passes to the likes of JuJu Smith-Schuster, Kendrick Bourne, Hunter Henry and Mike Gesicki.

That period felt like a sign that the Patriots would rest most of their starters against the Houston Texans.

As practice went on, Jones took the bulk of the reps and despite some messy offensive line play, the third-year quarterback played well. Jones went 10 for 13 passing in full-team drills. It wasn’t the easiest day for the offense, which allowed five sacks.

Jones was sacked two times in his first five drop backs on Tuesday. Both by second-year player Sam Roberts. The quarterback started the day going 5 for 7 with two completions to Henry and then passes to DeVante Parker, Bourne and Tyquan Thornton. That reception for Thornton was his first from Jones in 12 days of camp.

Jones and the offense had a solid red-zone period. He threw touchdown passes to Rhamondre Stevenson and Gesicki. The score to Gesicki just might have been the play of training camp for the Patriots. The tight end jumped over Jabrill Peppers and two other defenders to make a ridiculous one-handed catch in the back of the end zone.

Gesicki had little space and it was impressive to see him get two feet in bounds.

In his final period, Jones completed two passes to Stevenson and then another to Henry. The offense had one more play, but Jones was sacked by Josh Uche to end practice.

After taking the bulk of reps to start practice, Zappe, McSorley and Cunningham had lighter days toward the end of the session. Zappe finished 4 of 5 with a touchdown to Thornton. McSorley went 2 of 2 while Cunningham had his most extensive day at quarterback in a Patriots practice. The undrafted rookie went 4 of 5 with three passes going to Tre Nixon.

This was the last practice before the Patriots’ preseason opener. The way the Patriots divided up quarterback reps certainly made it feel like we’ll see a lot from the likes of Zappe, McSorley and perhaps Cunningham on Thursday.

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