Meet Devin Ross, the Patriots' Standout Receiver at Training Camp
The standout receiver at New England Patriots training camp this week isn't Julian Edelman, Mohamed Sanu, N'Keal Harry, Jakobi Meyers or Gunner Olszewski. It's Devin Ross.
You're probably wondering who Devin Ross is. Let me explain; Ross entered the league in 2018 as an undrafted rookie out of Colorado. He was signed by the Tennessee Titans that summer, but his chances of making a regular season appearance were diminished when the team placed him on injured reserve in early September. Two days later he was released. Over the next year he re-joined the Titans, was cut, then joined the Philadelphia Eagles and was cut within a month and a half. Ross then joined the Patriots' practice squad on Oct. 15 of 2019 and has been with the team since.
"Yeah, Devin's a hardworking kid," Bill Belichick said on Wednesday during a video conference with the media."I think when we got him last year, I’m not sure that he was 100 percent healthy. He was healthy, but I think he’s gained – plus he’s had an offseason, even though it’s not been supervised in the building, it’s still been supervised training. I think that he’s improved from this year to last year. We’ll see how things go here, but yeah, he looks like he’s ready to go and ready to compete, and we’ll see how that all comes together."
Ross may have not been 100 percent healthy last year, but he is now. And that has been evident over the first several days of Phase Two of training camp. Ross has been sticking out among the receivers, making big plays during some of the team drills at practice.
"I actually feel great. I feel better than I ever have, just overall," Ross said Wednesday during a video conference with the media.
Health status aside, why is Ross, who is one of the wideouts on the Patriots' roster seldom talked about prior to training camp, sticking out this summer? According to Ross, it's because he's had an entire offseason to dig his heels into the playbook.
"Just going back to our virtual meetings from the start, during the OTA period, that helped me a lot, just being able to learn everything, learn the whole scheme, I've just been able to go out there and play fast and just know everything, how to read coverages and everything like that. It's all just coming together and being able to get repetitions out it is definitely helping a lot."
While the whirlwind of an offseason due to COVID-19 left NFL teams with a lot of unknowns, it has also opened opportunities for players like Ross, who has a better chance of making the roster due to several New England players opting out, such as veteran wideout Marqise Lee, who was signed by New England this offseason. Lee was not a guarantee to make the 53-man roster, but his presence would have made it that much harder for players like Ross to make the roster.
While there are plenty of names that can still jump out during training camp since it's still relatively early in Phase 2, Devin Ross is the guy catching headlines this week in Foxboro. And if he can keep it up throughout the rest of training camp, he'll find himself on New England's regular-season roster without a doubt.
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