Getty Image / Billie Weiss
A week into training camp for the New England Patriots, the team had a couple of players that weren’t able to fully participate for the their first day in pads.
2022 2nd round pick Tyquan Thornton was seen heading toward the conditioning field for an undisclosed reason.
The team’s star running back, Rhamondre Stevenson, was also surprisingly a limited participant today.
After practice, he was asked why he unexpectedly wasn’t able to fully participate and he told reporters that they should ask Bill Belichick.
Rhamondre Stevenson, who was limited in Wednesday's Training Camp practice session, says on his workload, "Honestly, you gotta ask Bill Belichick."
Stevenson is following the coaches plan: "I'm itching to get in there, especially when we have pads on." @ABC6 #Patriots #ForeverNE pic.twitter.com/99Gb5azSgd
— Nick Coit (@NCoitABC6) August 2, 2023
“Honestly, you gotta ask Bill Belichick,” Stevenson said with a smile. “I don’t know why I’m not practicing. You got to ask Bill, really.
I’m itching to get in there, especially when we have pads on. When we don’t have pads on, I’m not itching as much. But since the pads are on and stuff, yeah, I’m itching to get out there.”
Unless the New England Patriots end up landing Dalvin Cook, Rhamondre Stevenson appears to be heading for a pretty huge season in 2023.
Last season, he split carries with Damien Harris for more than half the year and still managed to put together a pretty strong year.
He ran for 1040 yards on the season while averaging right around 5 yards per carry and also added in 69 catches for 421 yards.
Now he has no competition for touches in the New England Patriots’ backfield after James Robinson was released and will likely be leaned on early in the year while Mac Jones is getting his career back on track.
Maybe Bill Belichick is just trying to keep him fresh before giving him a ton of carries this season.