LeGarrette Blount isn’t practicing today. He’s ill. He also didn’t practice yesterday. With the Patriots kicking off in two days, it’s looking likely that Blount won’t be used in a heavy-duty role.
This is what I was expecting anyway. New England in the last month has moved away from using Blount as a full-time type back. They’ve started working in Dion Lewis a lot, and that’s really more of a one-two punch backfield now.
In their last three games, in fact, Lewis has run for 63 more yards than Blount. They’ve both averaged 15-17 carries in those games.
With Blount, the selling point is that if the ball winds up on the 1- or 2-yard line, he’s the back they liked to use to punch it in. He’s scored all but one of their 19 rushing touchdowns. And while he’s missed a couple of practices, I consider him to still be really likely to get in the end zone Saturday.
But he doesn’t look particularly likely to run for anything more than about 50 yards. Houston has been really good against the run in the second half of the season. And I believe Lewis will be out there a lot (and this is setting aside James White, who’ll come in on obvious passing downs). In those closing games, Lewis showed some zip and elusiveness that Blount doesn’t have, which seems to add a dimension to the offense.
I expect both Blount and Lewis to run for 40-60 yards on Saturday. With Blount being out ill for a few games, I don’t think there’s much chance at all of the Patriots giving him 22-25 carries while leaving Lewis primarily on the bench.
| NEW ENGLAND RUNNING STATS, LAST 3 WEEKS | ||
|---|---|---|
| Game | Blount | Lewis |
| at Denver (W 16-3) | 17-31-1 | 18-95-0 |
| N.Y. Jets (W 41-3) | 20-50-2 | 16-52-0 |
| at Miami (W 35-14) | 14-51-1 | 11-48-0 |
| Total | 51-132-4 | 45-195-0 |
—Ian Allan