The Patriots are down to duct tape and prayer. With the Jets coming up, New England just signed RB Hassan Haskins and CB D'Shawn Jamison to the practice squad while releasing LB Jose Ramirez. It's triage football—patch the bleeding spots and hope the whole thing doesn't collapse on Sunday.
This isn't an indictment of Mike Vrabel's roster construction. It's the reality of October in a rebuild. Depth gets tested. Injuries pile up. You work the phones and you work the waiver wire, and sometimes that means cycling through bodies at linebacker and secondary. The fact that the Patriots are being this aggressive on the practice squad suggests they're dealing with real availability issues, not just depth chart housekeeping.
Haskins gives you a power back option in a crowded room—Myles Montgomery, Elijah Mitchell, Corey Kiner, and the rest of the rotation are already there, so expect him to contribute on short yardage and pass protection more than anything. He's a depth play, not a statement. Jamison at corner is more intriguing given the sheer number of bodies already in that secondary. That unit is crowded but not necessarily deep with reliable NFL players. If they're bringing in another corner, it means they're either dealing with injury or they're genuinely concerned about coverage depth heading into a divisional grind.
The concerning part? Ramirez gets the boot. That suggests the linebacker room is either finding answers elsewhere or deciding that the bodies already on the roster—Spillane, Jennings, Gainer, Muma, and the rest—represent a better direction forward. Either way, it's another move that signals urgency. The Patriots have leverage issues on both sides of the ball, and they're trying to solve them with marginal upgrades.
The Jets game matters more than these roster moves suggest. But these moves matter too. They're the silent indicator of where a team stands when the schedule gets real.
Based on reporting from Pats Pulpit.