FOXBORO, MASS.

The snicker said it all. But he confirmed it with words.

Chris Hogan really wanted out of Buffalo.

Asked after his first training camp practice with his new NFL team, the New England Patriots, if it was tough to leave the Buffalo Bills, Hogan didn’t exactly shed a tear.

“Naw, I mean this is an ideal place for me. It was a change that I think, personally for myself, that I needed,” Hogan said Thursday, after the Pats’ morning practice concluded on the grass fields adjacent to Gillette Stadium.

“I think I just needed a change. I wanted to get out. I kind of got a little complacent where I was, and this really has kind of (been) a rebirth of me as a football player.”

The 6-foot-1, 210-pounder is a graduate of New Jersey’s Monmouth University. After short, unsuccessful undrafted free-agent stints in 2011 and early 2012 with the San Francisco 49ers, New York Giants and Miami Dolphins, Hogan latched on with the Bills during the 2012 season.

In Miami he’d earned the nickname “7-Eleven” because he was always open, like the convenience-store chain.

By 2014, Hogan began to make important catches and occasional big plays in Buffalo. By the end of the 2015 season he’d amassed 87 catches -- six for touchdowns -- for 959 yards, and never missed a game from 2013-15.

Hogan became a restricted free agent in early March. The Bills surprisingly offered him a low tender offer of $1.6 million. The Patriots offered him $12 million over four years, per ESPN, and the Bills declined to match it.

Hogan said he was not upset.

“I want to learn. I want to play for Tom, and I want to play for Jimmy, and I want to play for Bill. I’m having so much fun out here. It’s starting the process of learning a playbook all over for me, and it’s a lot of fun.”

The 27-year-old intimated that there were frustrations for him in Buffalo. Although he did not identify either by name, he couldn’t get past Sammy Watkins and Robert Woods on the depth chart, or priority list.

“It is what it is over there,” he said. “Obviously they have their guys, and that’s who it was. I’m not going to ask for the ball, and all that kind of stuff. I’m a role guy, and I like playing my role.

“Whatever my role is I’m going to play it to the best of my ability, and I think that I can take on a good role here.”

What does he see his role being in New England?

“I think it’s going to be whatever they need me to be,” Hogan said. “There could be weeks where I’m playing a lot of receiver, and there could be weeks I’m playing a lot of special teams. I’m not really limiting my options.

“I want to do everything for this team, just because it’s a new team for me, and I want to prove to these guys that I can be accountable on the field, and they can count on me when I’m out there. That’s what I’m focusing on.”

It’s an NFL receiver’s dream to have passes thrown to him by someone of Tom Brady’s calibre. That’s a substantial reason Hogan is so excited about the move.

Brady, who turns 39 next Wednesday, is renowned for the sure-handedness and route-running precision he demands of his pass catchers. Hogan chuckled when asked if he’d noticed that yet.

“Yeah. I saw it from the second I walked into this building,” he said. “Just being out here throwing with him in the off-season.

“But it’s everybody (who demands precision). It’s Jimmy (Garoppolo, backup quarterback). He’s learning from that from Tom. And it’s Josh (McDaniels, offensive coordinator). He’s very demanding for everything that he wants done. You don’t ever question it. You see it on film and say, ‘OK, this is why they want it done.’ It works this way.”

Hogan still can’t shake his reputation for being, well, a slow white guy. Yet he repeatedly burns NFL cornerbacks on deep passes, as Buffalo QB Tyrod Taylor happily discovered a year ago.

“Yeah, every single year in Buffalo I was always, like, the underdog. ‘Is he going to make the team?’ Or, ‘How is he going to do?’ I don’t even pay attention to (the doubts) anymore. I know where I want to go, and I know what I want to do. I want to be successful. I’m working as hard as I can to be successful.

“I don’t want to really have to worry about all that other stuff anymore. It used to bother me, but at the end of the day my play speaks for itself. I catch the deep balls, I catch everything short -- so I let my play do the talking.”

All this doesn’t mean Hogan was able to turn the career page without the occasional double-take, in jumping from the Bills to the Bills’ arch-enemy.

“It’s kind of funny. It’s like one day you’re marking the Patriots down on the calendar, and the next day you’re scribbling it out and marking the Bills down on the calendar,” Hogan said.

“So, it’s kind of cool. I’ve gone against this team for four years now, and it’s a battle every single time. You respect the way these guys play. I’m excited to be on this team now, and be on the same side of the ball as them.”

LETHAL COMBO AT TIGHT END

FOXBORO, Mass. -- Tom Brady and the New England Patriots offence might have been most dangerous when it had two supremely athletic, good-handed tight ends, circa 2010-11.

Namely, Rob Gronkowski -- the Pats’ perennial all-pro -- and the guy who’s now likely to spend the rest of his life in prison for murder, ex-Patriot Aaron Hernandez.

This year Martellus Bennett, acquired in a trade from Chicago, could help make the Patriots doubly dangerous and diverse again in that manner.

“He’s a great guy to work with,” Gronkowski said of Bennett on Thursday. “He’s football smart. He’s picked up the playbook very well -- which is super, super beneficial here in our offence.

“It’s fun working with him. It’s another guy that is just super talented and wants me to push harder, too. I can take things from his game, seeing his athleticism, seeing how he gets off the ball. I can bring it into my game, use some of his routes. He can come use some of mine. It’s great to work off each other.”

JoKryk@postmedia.com

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