Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS - Aug. 22, 2016 - How the Pats will move on without Dion Lewis

Episode Date: August 22, 2016

The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe examines the loss of Dion Lewis, who will miss another 8-10 weeks because of a second knee surgery, and how the Patriots will move on from here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, where are you going, Jim? The elevator's over here. Taking the stairs. But our meeting's up on 8. Yeah, I know. But that's 8 floors up. That's like 8 times... I don't... a lot of stairs. That's the point. I've already lost a few pounds and earned almost $100 in wellness incentives. Whoa, you're getting rewarded for working out? Yeah, I know. I'm just as surprised as you are, Bob.

Fearless is full of surprises. That's the power of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program. Learn more about our healthy benefits and sign up at fepblue.org slash choose blue by December 11th. What's up everybody and happy Monday. This is Locked On Patriots and I am Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald. This is your episode for Monday, August 22nd. Why are you listening? Well, if this is not your first time listening, you know exactly why you're listening. This is great stuff. And if this is your first time listening, well, I've been covering the team for eight years and there is not another beat reporter covering the Patriots for as long as I have who has a daily podcast. So you can quite literally not find another experience on the internet just like this one.

How many people can really go out and say that? So let's go jump right into it. This is a Dion Lewis podcast and not the kind of news that anybody was really looking for, especially after there were so many positive things heard about his rehab from the torn ACL that he suffered last November against the Redskins Lewis was consistently doing well behind the scenes all I heard was it was about patience patience patience as recently as last week I was told that the Patriots probably wouldn't practice him until week one just to get his legs under him because they were going to take it as slowly and methodically as possible and then they found a little bit of a setback they have to go in and clean up that knee

one more surgery it's not it doesn't have to do with the ACL which is good but it's still an eight to ten week recovery period and that means Dion Lewis is going to start the season on the physically unable to perform list which he's already been on since the start of training camp. Now this is tough, and there's no way to really put a silver lining on it. But the Patriots weren't going to rely heavily on Lewis at the start of the season anyway. That's not to say he wouldn't have been extremely valuable for Jimmy Garoppolo in the first four games of the season or Tom Brady during the the next handful of weeks that he's ultimately going to miss but if you look at the way that they've slowly brought Lewis along if this news didn't come about

I'm not entirely sure he would have had any more than six to eight touches a game now again that doesn't mean that those touches wouldn't have been valuable you wouldn't have seen him on a top 10 play on sports center at the end of some of those sunday nights but this is a guy who last season averaged 12 touches a game in terms of catches and carries for 89 yards and he had four total touchdowns now again uh i'm not diminishing what lewis did he was fantastic uh just a one of the bright spots not just for the patriots offense but the entire nfl breakout player of the year candidate before he tore that acl and his injury really kick-started uh an ugly stretch for the patriots from the medical standpoint because Julian Edelman went

down the week after that and a couple weeks after that Rob Gronkowski went down you already were dealing with Jamie Collins illness the morning that before that Redskins game so that was really where the Patriots season started to get cursed if you believe that that was indeed the case with all those injuries but now the Patriots have to pick up the pieces and when you're looking at Lewis's recovery again he's going to start on the pup list so the eight to ten weeks actually the eight week window if he has the the surgery as quickly as this week still don't know the exact date of the surgery but I'm guessing it's going to be as soon as possible.

So it lines up nicely with the Pup window. Now, here's a reminder of the rules. Deion Lewis can begin practicing at any point between October 18th and November 22nd. As soon as he begins practicing, the Patriots have to start a 21-day clock when they have to decide are they going to activate him to the 53 man roster or leave him on the pup list for the remainder of the season so if he starts practicing October 18th they then have any point in the next 21 days now they could activate him they could start him on the practice field October 18th and activate him that day they don't have to wait the full 21 days so or they could just wait the 21 days based on how he responds at practice and so on and so

forth so anyway that first window you're looking at October 18th to November 22nd so once you're you're looking at that you can see Lewis potentially getting back as early as week seven if it you know drags out a little bit November 22nd the end of that window if he starts practicing and then is able to play as quickly as possible then you're then you're looking at week 12 and if the Patriots want to drag this out as much as possible you get him out there November 22nd you wait the 21 days and that brings you to December 13th which gets him back on the field in time for week 15 now they could technically activate him December 13th and then have him as a healthy scratch or just deactivate him from the 46 man roster roster the rest of the way. But you're

looking at a pretty wide window here. But what I was told is there's a good chance that Deion Lewis is going to play in 2016. That is the plan. And it's an eight to 10-week recovery window. So unless there is another setback, which obviously this is right now, the news from this weekend is a setback, you can still count on seeing Dion Lewis at some point that doesn't mean Dion Lewis is going to come back and light the world on fire because again I thought that was unrealistic anyway and as much as I heard if you've been following my work in the Boston Herald or on Twitter at Jeff P Howe or on this podcast Locked On Patriots or really wherever, Comcast, 98.5,

the sports hub, I'm all over the place. I've been trying to temper expectations for Lewis because he tore that ACL in November. And that's just such a quick turnaround for a guy to come back and play as well as you would like him to play, considering how good he was in 2015 for those first or the seven games that he was ultimately on the field so then you take his his style of play into account too the shiftiness uh lagarrette blunt calls him the human joystick he's basically a real life video game character when you've got a a need that is recovering the way that his is you know again what can you realistically expect to see from him when he's coming back within the year so i don't think you were going to get the best

football that deon lewis has had in his career in 2016 but having him on the field still is better than not having him on the field so the patriots have to figure out how they're going to recover, or at least, I guess in some sense, it gives them some finality to that situation because going through here, as every week went by, it was like, all right, we haven't seen Dion Lewis on the practice field. What are they going to do here? Are they really going to keep him on the pup list? Are they going to activate him? And if they do, whose job does that, whose chances of making the team does that hurt right now they know they don't have they can't count on Deion Lewis from at least weeks one through six so what are they doing from here James White is going to be the guy that you're

going to continue to hear and James White has had a good camp and he made a play on a screen pass in the second quarter against the Bears Thursday night in the preseason game at Gillette Stadium when he broke some tackles was a little shifty in space and should have lost five yards but gained 14 was ultimately brought down at the one yard line nice play out of James White I'm not sure that's a play you see James White make last year certainly not a play you see him make as a rookie when he had a hard time breaking tackles or really just any sort of contact at all the guy went straight to the ground so seeing that extra strength that playing strength the ability to evade tackles that's still not going to be he's not going to be a Deion Lewis he's not going to be a LeGarrette Blunt to take it even a step further than that

but you just want to see him make some guys miss and that's something that he's improved on he's not going to be a great back between the tackles he doesn't need to be a great back between the tackles because that's not his role and remember look at what Shane Vereen did during his four years with the Patriots he was not a between the tackles runner whatsoever and helped them win a Super Bowl because he caught 11 balls against the Seahawks in 2014 so you just want James White to go out there and handle his role as well as as he possibly can he's running better routes he's really been depended on by both quarterbacks Jimmy Garoppolo and Tom Brady and he's capitalized on a situation or really a window that Donald Brown opened for him.

Donald Brown was their, maybe their top overall back through about the first four practices of training camp. He had a good offseason workout program, looked really good in pads the first couple days. And then we haven't seen him since. So James White has been the guy who has gone out there and capitalized and in a big way with garoppolo white caught a training camp is over there's 16 practices in and monday actually starts the first practice past training camp so we're no longer going to see these guys in training camp no longer going to be able to to track practice statistics which some of you love and some of you hate but to put them in context at least it helps you assess

where certain guys are and how quarterbacks favor certain receivers but james white has caught 20 balls from jimmy garoppolo passes and a lot of those almost every single one actually i believe all but one have come since since Donald Brown went down. So James White, 19 catches since Brown went down after the fourth practice. So he's talking practices five through, I don't even want to call it the 16th practice because that was a walkthrough with the Bears. So over the course of 11 practices, 19 catches from White on Garoppolo throws. Now that's what, two, just a tick less than two catches in team drills from Garoppolo per day. But when you measure it up against other players, Martellus Bennett had 23. That was the most that Jimmy Garoppolo had in terms of completions to

one player. Aaron Dobson had 23, so tied there Bennett and then you had White so Jimmy Garoppolo's third favorite target so far or at through the duration of training camp and that counts for a lot and some of that I've criticized Garoppolo for for staring at White a little too frequently especially in the face of pressure but Garoppolo has gotten away from that bad habit and I think he's finding white in in better circumstances uh when he's split out wide a little bit uh although he grew up low's worst throw of the preseason game against the Bears was a target too white when he was in the right slot and ran a intermediate slant pattern that the linebacker jumped and should have intercepted but either way that was not the result of a sloppy check down or just staring at a guy

because he was in the face of a pass rush it was just hey he didn't see the linebacker and the linebacker made a good but not great play but anyway you're talking about James White coming in and filling in for Deion Lewis because he is going to be the Patriots top pass catching running back or the top passing down running back if you followed my work for the last couple years you would know that I hate to use the term third down back because that's an antiquated term in my opinion because teams, especially the Patriots, that throw the ball all three downs,

you need a passing down back. And then you get a running down back or a between the tackles back. And that's where LeGarrette Blount, maybe Donald Brown, maybeler gaffney steps in brandon bolden's another guy who was going to make the team because he's such an important special teamer but just circling back again real quick james white has 13 catches off tom brady passes during training camp that's uh in the i would, the second tier when you get through who Tom Brady has found most frequently.

Chris Hogan had 22 catches in training camp. Rob Gronkowski had 21. Aaron Dobson, DeAndre Carter each had 18. Martellus Bennett had 16. Brandon Bolden had 15. And then you've got James White and Chris Harper each had 13 so he's been favorable not not as favorable I guess as Brandon Bolden's been but I just I think James White's ceiling as a pass catching running back is a lot higher than Brandon Bolden's ceiling and you saw Bolden make

criminal mistake in the preseason game on a carry down by the goal line when he fumbled the ball three yard line tracy porter stripped it and recovered it for the saints or for the bears to to end that potential scoring bid for the patriots so again those are the names you got james white and brandon bolden is your passing down backs right now you've got lagarra blunt and tyler gaffney is your between the tackles backs and donald brown's a wild card i think if donald brown comes back at any point in the next 10 days and looks even like a shell of himself he's got a pretty good chance to leapfrog tyler gaffney and earn a spot in that 53 man roster it's also important to note the money that and you can read more of this in today's heralds i wrote a story about the

patriots free agent acquisitions some of the guys who earned big money signing bonuses or guarantees and are now no longer the roster locks that they were paid to be donald brown got three hundred thousand dollars in guaranteed money this offseason and is playing under the minimum salary benefit, which is a way to reduce the cap hit of established veterans. And this is just a quick tangent. This was put in place in the new CBA, so teams wouldn't just say, hey, let's sign all these second-year undrafted guys who are making the league minimum. You can pay them, let's say, $450,000 against the cap, no guaranteed money. And then all of a sudden you've got like these six, seven, eight year veterans who are out of

work. So that's where the minimum salary benefit comes in. It kicks down their cap hit. So you can keep those veterans employed for longer stretches of time. So that's why Donald Brown's cap hit is lower than it should be or lower than the cash that he could eventually make if he's on the 53-man roster for the full season so you look at that along with tyler gaffney's cap hit which is about i believe 450 000 give or take a few thousand dollars there if i my memory serves but again you can read all this in the heralds and if you end up cutting donald brown you still eat that three hundred thousand dollars in guaranteed money so even though brown's cap hit is about two hundred thousand dollars higher than gaffney it would be cheaper for the patriots to keep brown who also clearly has a higher upside than gaffney i think

assuming he stays healthy he's just a little more explosive and he's a better pass catcher definitely a better pass catcher than tyler gaffney and i think he's definitely got more speed between the tackles too so i kind of hyped up donald brown through the first four days of training camp because he was off to such a good start surprised me as much as anything because i had very low expectations for him when the patriots signed him this offseason but warranted it and then then he came crashing down with this injury. And we've seen him out there conditioning for the last couple of weeks. So it's not a major injury. But when you see a guy out there conditioning week after week, it's just like,

all right, man, when are you coming back? When are you getting back on the fields? Time's ticking. The Patriots have to cut down to 75 players next Tuesday. So you're looking at the 30th. And then the following Saturday a few days later they got to get down to 53 so when's Donald Brown going to get out there the Patriots are going to practice this week Monday Tuesday Wednesday they head to Charlotte on Thursday they play the Panthers on Friday they're definitely not going to practice Saturday so then they've got the preseason finale against the Giants next Thursday so best case scenario they're practicing Sunday Monday Tuesday so you're looking at right now for anybody

on the bubble they've got six practices left at full speed at at most you know maybe even as few as five and they've got two preseason games so for guys like donald brown and dj foster i guess you could probably write off at this point somebody they probably are either going to put on ir or keep on the practice squad this is my speculation uh then you just can't look at dj foster making the 53 man roster way too much ground to make up unless you you know, he comes back on Monday and has an outstanding stretch of practices and then lights it up in the two preseason games. But I'm just trying to be realistic here. And DJ Foster is a guy that I haven't talked much about so far to this point in today's podcast, which is unfortunate because you want to talk

about a hype train. My goodness. I goodness, I was the conductor on that thing. And going into training camp, his footwork was just tremendous. It was electric. You see him in space. His speed is fascinating. He really can make guys miss. And when he gets a full head of steam, he's tough to chase. So this is what we saw during OTAs and minicamp or not necessarily

minicamp because that's when he went down with a hamstring injury this off season. But we have been cheated out of the DJ Foster experience so far in training camp because he's been dealing with an injury and he's been out there conditioning with the likes of Donald Brown. So that's, here's what, this is why i'm saying you could potentially see dj foster go to ir or the practice squad so i think ideally the patriots well ideally the patriots see dj foster get back as early as monday and again go out and have two great weeks and then makes the 53 man roster if that's not, considering we haven't seen him practice for more than three weeks at this point,

then you get him out there, he plays well enough, you sneak him onto the practice squad. If the Patriots don't believe they can sneak him onto the practice squad, they might just say, look, you were hurt in the spring, you're hurt again now, you're going to IR because they just don't want to lose them on the waiver wire and that stuff happens with pretty much every single team every single year at this point in the calendar when they're trying to preserve trying to keep guys around

even though maybe their injury is only a short one they say you know what i don't want to lose you i don't want to watch you in 2017 dancing around my defenders when I can keep you here. And then maybe you have a better chance to make the 53 next year. So that all is why I'm saying that, you know, DJ Foster might be in for a red shirt, 2016, the undrafted rookie got off to a good start, but just too many injuries at this point. So what else, you know, we could be surprised here uh but ultimately what it comes down to is the Patriots are going to need all hands on deck as they try to replace Dion Lewis the first handful of weeks of the season and it's look it's a tough one but this is a team that is so stacked has so many weapons that if you've got Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowski, Chris Hogan, you know, Malcolm Mitchell comes back. Martellus Bennett has been a nice addition.

And if Danny Amendola is activated in time for the regular season, there's still Jimmy Garoppolo still has a handful of guys who can, he can throw the ball around to, you know, maybe their running game isn't going to be as dynamic as it would be, or it definitely won't be as dynamic as it would be with a healthy Deion Lewis, but how healthy would Deion Lewis have been those first four weeks of the season? So they were still going to need guys like LeGarrette Blount and maybe Donald Brown and definitely James White to pick up the slack. I probably expected Blount and White to have more snaps than lewis in the first

handful of weeks of the regular season anyway just because of my tempered expectations for lewis even if he was on that 53 man roster and he was out there playing i still thought it was going to be as more of a complimentary role now that doesn't say those snaps again wouldn't have been serviceable they absolutely would have helped jimmy garoppolo and as lewis got his legs under him you know he comes back in better shape as the weeks go on let's say as the calendar flips to october as opposed to right now when the calendar flips to october he's still got at least two more weeks on the pop list so uh again not ideal but that's what the patriotsots are looking at as they try to move on or move forward without Deion Lewis for the time being.

That's going to be the show for today. Again, as a reminder, the Patriots have closed down training camp, so we're not able to watch the duration of practices anymore. We're out there for 10 to 15 minutes. We basically see them stretch. We take attendance, and that's about it. So without full two, two-and-a-half-hour sessions to break down almost every single day, the podcast is going to change a little bit. It's not going to be just, all right, this is what happened in practice,

or, okay, this was the big news of the day. Today's different because Deion Lewis went down, or Deion Lewis's surgery is upcoming, so that was why we had to go with that. But, you know, break down more positions on the roster, especially in the next, you know, 10 to 14 days as the Patriots really carve out their first 53 and then their 10-man practice squad. So it's a fun, interesting time of year

as the Patriots finalize some of these roster battles and you know actually today's show I fully planned on doing some offensive line talk so I'll probably get down to the offensive line on Tuesday and we'll see how the uh the week shapes up but a really important week as the Patriots prepare for their third preseason game it's the Panthers home opener in their preseason a team that is coming off a super bowl appearance they have a really good defense i'm very interested to see how carolina responds this season after losing in the super bowl super bowl that i absolutely expected them to win there is still very talented team probably one of the three or four most talented rosters in

the nfl and are they going to live up to that talent or are they going to be a team that falls very talented team, probably one of the three or four most talented rosters in the NFL. And are they going to live up to that talent? Or are they going to be a team that falls back because they lost in the Super Bowl the year before? And we've seen that happen all too frequently. So we know it's certainly a possibility for the Panthers. So they're going to be jacked up in this game. They're going to go after Jimmy Garoppolo, who it would make sense for him to start, but if he doesn't, whatever. We'll get to that stuff later in the week but that's why this is going to be a big week for the Patriots we're going to see what this team is made of they've had two pretty good preseason games so far but this is a completely different test and this is going to be as fired up as just about any team could really be or any crowd could really be in the preseason because of this home opener

after a Super Bowl loss and combining with the huge expectations the Panthers have again now if you want to sponsor this Locked On Patriots podcast let me know you want to reach an audience that consists 98% of men between the ages of 18 and 44, this is the podcast for you to sponsor. So hit me up. Jeff.Howe at BostonHerald.com is my email address. Let me know if you want to sponsor the show. We've got great rates, and we can take it from there. But otherwise, I'll see you guys on Tuesday.

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