Socci’s View: As players go, don’t be dismissive of their stories
More than a full quarter before Patriots rookie Isaiah Bolden was knocked unconscious in Green Bay and carted from the field through a stadium tunnel, to be followed by teammates and their counterparts leaving a preseason game incomplete, play was paused, only to go on.
It happened with a minute and nine seconds left in the first half.
Uncorking a low, humpback liner of a throw more than 30 yards downfield, quarterback Bailey Zappe led Tre Nixon amid three Packers toward the right sideline. Nixon left his feet and Green Bay’s Anthony Johnson left his; elevating over the receiver’s back to knock the ball aside.
Nixon landed, his knees and right elbow striking the turf first. Then Johnson came down, with all 205 pounds of him crashing into Nixon’s neck and right shoulder. The Patriots were charged with a timeout, as their medical team sprung to Nixon’s aid.
Two minutes later, he was helped to his feet and slowly left the field. A minute after that, the game continued.
Off the next snap, Kayshon Butte caught Zappe’s next ball, thrown through two defenders, and bolted loose through two more, sprinting the final 32 yards after the catch for a touchdown.
Boutte’s burst, continuing the rookie’s mid-to-late August ascent, thrust him into various Pats’ roster projections. A sixth-round pick from LSU, he looked to be no less than a strong consideration for a spot. Two weeks later, he had one.
Nixon, who left Green Bay with his arm in a sling, became subject of a side note. Waived with an injury designation, he went unclaimed by 31 other teams and was placed on injured reserve.
The grinder known as the National Football League had claimed another casualty.
In late July, more than 2,800 players populated training-camp rosters. On Tuesday, the number of names was reduced to nearly 1,700. Less than half of the 1,100-plus others were signed to practice squads. Some, like Nixon, were IR’d.
Three years ago, Nixon came to New England as the 242nd selection of the 2021 Draft. He was the Patriots’ last pick in the final draft for Bill Belichick’s football consigliere, Ernie Adams.
Nixon, in fact, was Adams’s choice.
“Made me feel amazing,” a wide-eyed Nixon smilingly said at the outset of his first pro training camp. “Still to this day, I feel honored.
“That’s a moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
A charming kid out of Central Florida, Nixon was determined to make more such moments for himself. Unable to crack the roster as a rookie, he showed the Pats enough to stick around on the practice squad. All season.
With a head start on his second summer, he had a strong opening week of training camp. By post-preseason, he was short again of the 53-man roster. Still, he had a spot on the practice squad. Again, for the entire season.
As early as last May, Nixon’s experience and effort notwithstanding, it was readily apparent this likable long-shot would have a tough time just getting close to the one or two openings at receiver in his third season. Three rookies — two drafted, one a relatively high-paid undrafted candidate for a position conversion — were brought in.
Demario Douglas was already in good stead by the preseason opener. Boutte was charging fast by that second quarter at Lambeau. And Malik Cunningham, a dual-threat quarterback at Louisville, intrigued at various points with athleticism and aptitude, offering possibilities beyond running and receiving.
Yet, none deterred Nixon from running his own race as hard as he could. Never harder than on 1st-and-10 from the Packers’ 42-yard line.
Nixon’s football fate, for this year at least, was sealed on that Saturday evening. Eleven others learned theirs on Sunday.
On Monday, the Boston Globe’s Chris Price asked Belichick why that group was let go ahead of Tuesday’s 4 p.m. league-wide cutdown deadline. In his lengthy reply, Belichick acknowledged practical and transactional aspects of the moves.
Thirty-seven roster spots would disappear in two days. That’s a lot of players to get to in relatively little time. Giving some the jump on their next job search did a solid to them and their agents, serving to, as Belichick phrased it, “maintain a relationship.”
Although he’s as capable as anyone in separating emotion from reasoning on roster calls, Belichick also explained a human dimension of each transaction, rooted in respect and gratitude.
“I don’t want to not give those players at least the time and the courtesy of an explanation and the decision, a closure to it if you will,” he said. “I think they deserve that based on what they’ve given me.
“When you try to do 37 guys in an hour, it can just feel pretty dismissive of what the player’s effort and commitment has been. I want to recognize that because some of these guys have worked as hard as they could for the last however many months, in some cases years, and done all they could.”
Belichick offered more context before reiterating a caveat on Tuesday afternoon when WCVB-TV reporter Josh Brogadir probed further into the unenviable act of informing players of their release.
“We all knew this day was coming, and this is part of the process,” Belichick said, a day after two more, quarterback Trace McSorley and punter Corliss Waitman, were let go. “It’s a very competitive league and there’s a lot of very talented players.
“Again, I would, like I always do, caution you about thinking like things are over when they’re not necessarily over on a lot of levels. They may not be over here, they may not be over somewhere else. Players have certainly left here and gone and had careers, and players have been released by other teams and come here.”
Belichick cited the best of the examples of an ex-this-or-that-team player to entrench himself in Foxborough, Rob Ninkovich.
In the three years before he drove to a tryout in New England, his clothes stuffed into a Rubbermaid bin, Ninkovich was cut by the Saints, Dolphins and Saints again. Signed by the Pats, he became a rock-solid, edge-setting outside linebacker who sacked quarterbacks (46 in 123 games), took the ball away (five interceptions, 12 forced fumbles and 14 fumbles recovered) and won championships (in 2014 and 2016).
New England became home to him and his family. It still is.
Occasionally, as Belichick observed, one of his roster cuts thrives elsewhere. Like Kenny Moore, a 2021 Pro Bowler for Indianapolis.
“The stories aren’t over here. This is one step in the process for us and the players. For some it will be (over). For others, it won’t be,” Belichick said. “Some players we release will come back and play for us, be on the practice squad. And some won’t.”
Minutes after Belichick concluded, reporters filed out of the Gillette Stadium workroom and walked to the complex’s lower field where they (we) cross-checked the numbers on the team’s latest published roster with the jerseys of players warming up for practice.
Names were crossed off. Numbers were circled.
Four o’clock came and went; like Nick Folk, the reliable kicker traded by then to Tennessee. Reports of the released, including Zappe and Cunningham, posted. An hour later, the Pats’ locker room opened.
Inside, rather than an air of excitement over dreams realized, the heaviness of dreams denied hung over those who spoke in mostly hushed tones.
“Cut-down day’s hard for everyone,” said soon-to-be 13-time captain Matthew Slater. “Even a guy in my position, guys that have been in this league a long time, it’s not something that you enjoy. You work and strive and sacrifice for your dream for so long.
“For some of us, we’re fortunate enough where it works out in the place where we started it. And for others, they have to take a different path. That’s very challenging. What do you say to guys? How do you encourage them to keep pursuing their dream? It’s tough. This is not an easy day for anyone in here. There’s a lot of stress and anxiety. I mean I feel it as soon as I hit the door.”
None of the names waived as New England’s initial 53-man roster was announced — a strange mix that included one quarterback, two running backs and 11 offensive linemen — were claimed by noon on Wednesday. Within an hour, Zappe and Cunningham were reportedly being added to the Pats’ practice squad.
Two who won’t be joining them, this season at least, are Bolden and Nixon. A third is Conor McDermott, an end-of-season starter at right tackle in 2022.
Come next year, if healthy, one, a couple or, though unlikely, all three could be back and make it past the cut. This year, beginning a week from Sunday, the games go on without them.
We all know, as Belichick is apt to remark, they knew what they signed up for. But we shouldn’t be dismissive of their stories and sacrifices, laying themselves on the line in hopes of seizing a dream.
Bob Socci is in his 11th season calling play-by-play on the Patriots Radio Network on 98.5 The Sports Hub.
