Bill Belichick Gives Update On Pending Duke Dawson Return

Duke Dawson will return to the New England Patriots active roster any time now, and the information was confirmed by the team.

The rookie cornerback got back on the practice field last week. Duke Dawson was put on injured reserve to start the season due to his hamstring injury. The Patriots can easily add him to the active roster now that Eric Rowe was put on injured reserve.

Head coach Bill Belichick said that Dawson is getting “closer every day.”

“Yeah, he’s making progress every day. Certainly, the time that he had to rehab and get healthy or get stronger, so forth, was good for him. Now it’s good to get him on the field, get him in there working on the scout team, taking some defensive reps. So, we’ll see how it goes. I mean, he’s, I’d say, closer every day,” Belichick said.

Dawson joined the team to Buffalo to catch up some of the magic. The head coach walked about his plan regarding Dawson’s return.

“Yeah, well, the No. 1 thing for any player is just to be healthy when they come back and be able to do everything physically that they need to be able to do. And, in the meantime, there’s a lot of staying up on the material, staying up on any new calls or adjustments that we put in so they don’t fall behind on those, doing walk-throughs and keeping up on the film. And then, as they get progressively healthier, start to do individual drills that don’t involve contact or don’t involve stress on the injury part that is being rehabilitated and be able to work on those things – like catching balls, for example, things like that, where you may not be involved in running but you can work on your ball skills, things like that. So, you do what you can do, and what you can’t do, you wait until you’re able to do it and then you start doing that. But, you certainly don’t fall behind in the things that you are able to do just because there’s something that you’re not able to do, if that makes any sense,” Belichick added.

Dawson was drafted in the second round of the 2018 NFL Draft out of Florida. In 2017, he totaled 34 tackles and four interceptions.