Between first word of Ezekiel Elliott’s intention to join the Patriots and the team’s official announcement of his free-agent signing, news of another New England addition drew scant attention. Understandably.
Not so long ago, Elliott’s was the thick-bearded face of the franchise still fancying itself as ‘America’s Team.’ He’d been the big man on the campus of The Ohio State University, entered the NFL to first-round fanfare, become, essentially, a 1,000-yard-a-year running back, starred on HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks,’ scored touchdowns and celebrated one of them by hopping inside a Salvation Army kettle on national TV.
When he was cut by the Cowboys in March, Elliott’s career earnings had already surpassed $70 million. He could afford to wait five months, bypassing OTA’s and the opening weeks of training camp before signing with his next team.
Carson Wells didn’t have such luxury. His pro experience was limited to four months with the Cincinnati Bengals. Undrafted out of the University of Colorado, he signed in the spring and was released by the end of summer in 2022. An outside linebacker with a mind, motor and heart for the game, he needed to play elsewhere to get back inside the NFL.
That somewhere else was St. Louis of the XFL. From January thru April, Wells gained 10 games experience and gave NFL teams that much ‘tape’ to reevaluate him. The Patriots, who initially auditioned Wells last fall, invited him to another workout in June.
Last week, before leaving for Green Bay in the middle of an Elliott-dominated news cycle, they signed Wells. He is one of nearly 60 players from the XFL to join NFL clubs since mid-May.
“It’s been billed as a league of development,” says Randy Mueller, director of pro personnel for the XFL’s Seattle Sea Dragons. “But it’s really a league of opportunity.”
The same can be said for the USFL, the other pro spring league. On Aug. 12, the Pats signed offensive tackle Micah Vanterpool and running back C.J. Marable out of that circuit.
Three players picked from the list of dozens the team compiled as potential insurance if any of the 90 members of its training-camp roster needed replacing. Each acquired in a pinch, and required to be up and running in no time. Wells had three days to learn the playbook, much less names of teammates, practice twice and play 21 snaps on defense and special teams Saturday vs. the Packers.
“If you need depth at a certain position, generally, what you see throughout the league is teams would try out anywhere between three to six, seven players at that position,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said in his Monday video press conference. “It’s pretty obvious that they’re looking for someone to play that spot and a lot of those players don’t have very much experience.
“If you bring in a player right now, he needs to be kind of ready to go. It’s not like you have time to have a month of training with them and all that.”
Urgency accords spring leaguers an advantage over others.
“If you sign a player in February, that would be different,” Belichick said. “I would say the workout, the conditioning, the fact that it looks like the player’s ready to go, works in his favor in terms of signing a player in that situation.
“Sometimes, after those workouts the conversation is somewhere along the lines of, ‘Well this guy probably would be a better player or a better guy to work with, but he’s just not in good condition. He’s just not ready to go. This other guy is ready to go, he’s in good shape (and) his fundamentals are pretty good.’”
Mueller, who oversaw personnel departments for the Saints, Dolphins and Seahawks, likens the XFL to baseball’s PCL or IL, a Triple-A reserve where players benefit from major-league instruction repping football plays while others rep squats and bench presses.
“They’re getting really good coaching,” Mueller says. “They’re getting NFL instruction.”
His head coach in Seattle is Jim Haslett. Their defensive coordinator is Ron Zook. In 2000, Haslett and Zook held the same titles in New Orleans, where Mueller was named NFL Executive of the Year after the three led the Saints to 11 victories, including their first-ever playoff win. He notes that the Sea Dragons’ run-and-shoot offense was conceived by June Jones, the ex-Falcons coordinator and head coach.
“So we have experienced coaches that are really good at their job. I think it helps prepare these guys for an opportunity,” Mueller said on his cell phone from the Seattle area on Monday afternoon. “That’s why I call it more an opportunity than development league.
“Back in the day, we used to send eight guys to NFL Europe every year and I always said, ‘I’d rather have them go play than hang around here than lift weights in January and February.’ I would see this, at some point, as a lifeline for (the NFL) to give players opportunities and develop, actually playing football rather than hanging out at Phase 1 of an NFL offseason program, lifting weights.”
In Foxborough, Wells, Marable and Vanterpool were preceded by defensive lineman Jeremiah Pharms Jr. Coming out of tiny Friends University, a school of 2,800 undergraduates competing at the NAIA level in Wichita, Kan., he was signed by the USFL’s Pittsburgh Maulers in Feb. 2022.
The Pats added Pharms to their roster days before training camp and kept him on their practice squad throughout the season before inking him to a future contract in January. With eight tackles in 66 defensive snaps this preseason, the guy who stood out in a spring league continues to make plays amid a deep defensive front.
“You have recent film of him, so you can have some gauge of his speed, athleticism, toughness, play-making ability,” Belichick says of the XFL and USFL player, in general, before citing a specific. “I understand it’s at a different level. At least there is something to take a look at.
“Pharms (was) a good example last year, a guy that came in, was in good shape, played well, played hard, was productive and his career is still continuing. Guys like that, they are able to take advantage of that opportunity so that’s been good for players like that, to get that extra shot.”
Jeremiah Pharms Jr. was on the Patriots practice squad last season after playing for the USFL’s Pittsburgh Maulers. (Photo by Bob Socci)
Mueller saw 13 of Seattle’s players partake in NFL rookie mini-camps last spring. He says nine Sea Dragons are still on rosters this preseason. The latest, receiver Juwan Green, just signed with the defending Super Bowl champs in Kansas City.
“I was in the AAF and I’m positive this is a higher quality player,” he says of the Alliance of American Football, which launched and collapsed in 2019, though not before giving a platform to the likes of Patriots kicker Nick Folk. “The players in our league, I would say, half of them are NFL-fringe guys that really are just as good as guys that are on practice squads, just as good as 47 thru 53 (on 53-man rosters).”
Two of Mueller’s Seattle signees validating his view are quarterback Ben DiNucci and defensive end Niko Lalos. DiNucci, who made three appearances and one start for the Cowboys last year, is now the third quarterback with the Broncos. Lalos, originally an undrafted signee by the New York Giants from Dartmouth, had a three-sack performance Sunday for New Orleans.
Both already had brief stints at the NFL level and by doing well in the XFL, ensured that those wouldn’t be their last shots.
“If we can bring people to the NFL, I think the football ecosystem needs these kind of leagues,” Mueller says. “Let’s face it, our Triple-A now for the NFL level is college, but there is a giant jump for a lot of these guys to go from college to the NFL. There’s a gap. Guys spend two or three years on a practice squad. They could shorten that learning curve by coming to a league like this.”
Nowhere is the college-to-pro separation wider than at the two most vital offensive positions: quarterback and tackle.
“They need to play at game speed,” Mueller says. “The offensive tackles and quarterbacks, that’s where the league needs to develop. And that’s probably enough reason for the NFL to get behind a league like this. Even if you just develop those two positions.
“It’s a way to get more polished players for the NFL. These guys are in shape and their football IQ is up, because they’re just coming off a season, and their experience is invaluable. They’re not as raw as the college kids. They’ve been through it a little bit.”
They also have resources at their avail who can vouch for them with a first-hand understanding of what’s necessary to compete in the NFL.
“When (players) commit to coming to us, I tell them, ‘You’re going to have an advocate in Jim Haslett (and) in myself,” Mueller says. “There’s 80 years of NFL experience willing to go to work for you.’ So it’s like having a couple of extra agents. I take pride in it. I love to see these kids get opportunities.”
In New England, Carson Wells has his, just like Pharms and Marable and Vanterpool before him. It’s all he could ask for last winter when he landed in a league of opportunity.
Joint Ventures Cancelled
Houston head coach DeMeco Ryans cancelled scheduled joint practices between the Texans and Saints. (Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images)
The day after the Patriots altered their itinerary, cancelling scheduled joint practices with the Tennessee Titans and deciding to fly back to Providence instead of onward to Nashville, the Houston Texans made a similar choice ahead of their trip to New Orleans.
Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans reached out to his Saints counterpart Dennis Allen about a change of plans. Both agreed it was best to practice amongst themselves rather than against each other.
“They had a lot of guys get injured this past week and weren’t sure that we were going to be able to have productive joint practices,” Allen said Sunday night after New Orleans’ win over the Chargers in Los Angeles. “We thought it was better to go ahead and cancel (them) and just play the game.”
“I thought it was in the best interest of our team and putting our guys first that we shouldn’t do the joint practices,” Ryans said Monday to Houston media following a week of work vs. the visiting Miami Dolphins. “It wouldn’t have been as productive as we would have liked it to be had we gone to New Orleans.”
Talent Hunter
Patriots tight end Hunter Henry makes a catch vs. Miami in the 2022 home finale. (Photo by Winslow Townson/Getty Images)
Following Mueller’s final season as Miami’s general manager in 2007, he joined the San Diego Chargers as a senior executive for the next decade. While visiting the University of Arkansas in late summer of 2015, Mueller saw enough of junior tight end Hunter Henry in a single practice to signal an organization-wide alert.
“We had a button on our computers that if you pushed it, it alerted everybody in the organization, the coach, the GM, everybody,” he recalled. “We called it the ‘Easy Button’ from those Staples (TV commercial) days.
“He’s the only guy I ever used it on. I went to a training camp practice and he was only a junior at that time. When I left I pushed the ‘Easy Button’ and said, ‘We don’t need to do any further investigation. This is the guy.’”
Henry finished that fall as a consensus All-American and John Mackey Award winner, as college football’s most outstanding tight end. In the spring, the Chargers got their guy, drafting Henry 35th overall.
Gordon Still Going
Former Patriots receiver Josh Gordon is hoping for another NFL opportunity after spending the spring in the XFL. (Photo by Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports)
Ultra-talented, oft-troubled and well-traveled receiver Josh Gordon, who blasted into the NFL with 2,400-plus receiving yards his first two seasons and wound up on five teams, including the 2018-19 Patriots, is hoping for another opportunity. Gordon played in the XFL for Seattle last spring.
“He was absolutely awesome,” Mueller said. “He just called me the other day in hopes that somebody will see the film and give him an opportunity. He told me and I trust what he’s saying, ‘I’ve never been in this good shape, I’ve never caught this many balls, I’ve never had this kind of regiment.’
“We run an offense, June Jones’s run-and-shoot. Our guys run and catch all day long. He did everything that was asked and there was no entitlement whatsoever with Josh Gordon. He was awesome for us. I was telling him that I’d love to have him back.”
Bob Socci is in his 11th season calling play-by-play for the Patriots Radio Network on 98.5 The Sports Hub.
