Will the Patriots learn from the Matthew Judon situation?

New England Patriots linebacker Matthew Judon was seen back on the practice field Thursday morning after bowing out of practices earlier this week.

The move seems to signal a détente between Judon and higher-ups in Foxborough after cameras caught him in heated exchanges with head coach Jerod Mayo and de-facto GM Eliot Wolf on Monday.

The question remains: how long will this momentary peace last?

Will the Patriots grant him his wish for a more lucrative contract? Will he decide to hold out again? Or can Mayo, the somewhat self-proclaimed player’s coach, diffuse the situation entirely?

Andy Gresh and Nick “Fitzy” Stevens discussed this on Thursday’s edition of Gresh and Fauria on WEEI. Listen to the full segment above.

“It’s very interesting that now after six months of ‘empower the players,’ ‘speak,’ ‘ do your thing, even if it’s publicly’ to now we like to keep everything in house,” Gresh said.

The embarrassing sight for the Patriots of a player arguing publicly with top staff was something that Fitzy believed would never have happened in the Bill Belichick era.

“I saw somebody the other day wrote [that] one of Belichick’s greatest tricks and one of his greatest disciplines was never letting things like the Judon situation leak out onto the field,” Fitzy said.

“You would have never seen an argument like that because it would be buttoned up, tidied up, and swept under a proverbial rug.”

Fitzy also thought that Mayo was overly concerned about the situation's optics, given the public’s belief that he must have a good relationship with Judon and that he’s a player’s coach.

“Did Bill Belichick ever once give a flying you-know-what about optics or what people thought about him?” Fitzy asked.

Their handling of this whole situation down in Foxborough will show us how much their approach has changed post-Belichick. “That’s part of what makes this a whole new era,” Gresh said.

“The conversations, the feelings, the engagement, the dialogue, [the Patriots are] running a new collaborative environment and it can’t be collaborative, unfortunately, unless sometimes we have flare-ups, dust-ups, and arguments that are caught by [cameras].”

Gresh sees this as a big prove-it moment for Mayo.

“If Jerod Mayo’s really going to show us that he’s the relationship guy and that he’s the one who can go and be the wizard with these dudes,” Gresh said, “then Judon comes out here, he practices, and then he plays on his contract.”