For the first time in five weeks, the New England Patriots had a traditional fullback at practice on Wednesday. Reggie Gilliam, who was initially placed on injured reserve due to knee and ankle injuries in early October, made his comeback during his team’s final session before its trip to Germany for the upcoming Week 10 meeting with the Detroit Lions.
This means he is now officially designated to return from IR. Let’s check out how this impacts the Patriots for the time being.
Clock starts ticking
We will get into the
actual on-field impact of a potential Gilliam return to the 53-man roster once/if he is activated. For now, at least, the window for such a follow-up move has been opened.
This means that, at least theoretically, Gilliam could be back on the game day roster as soon as this Sunday against the Lions. He will join the rest of the team on the flight to Germany, so there is an option New England could activate him in time for the game.
They don’t have to, however: the team has 21 days to make that call before the return window will close again. If not activated at that point, Gilliam would revert back to injured reserve to end his season. Obviously, with return designations limited — more on that in a second — the expectation is is that the 29-year-old will eventually return to the 53-man roster when all is said and done.
Two guys, one spot
Following Monday’s release of tight end Tanner Arkin — a move that might hint at a potential Gilliam activation given that the rookie served as a stand-in fullback over the last few weeks — the Patriots have 52 of the 53 spots on their active roster occupied. This means that they could easily activate Gilliam without having to make a follow-up move.
There is only one problem: he is not the only player currently in the 21-day window. Interior offensive lineman Greg Van Roten, who was the next man up after starting right guard Mike Onwenu fractured his ankle in September, returned to practice last week. He too is a candidate to be activated, especially given the current state of New England’s interior offensive line.
Fact is, in order to bring both of them back, somebody will have to be removed from the active roster. There are several options, but one of them can effectively be ruled out: a player getting cut. With the Patriots taking their entire healthy roster to Germany, one of the 52 players getting handed his walking papers seems like a highly unlikely outcome.
What is more likely is that only one of them will be brought back this week, or that the additional spot for a second activation will be created by moving another player to an injury list. There are multiple candidates such as the three non-participants during Wednesday’s practice — RB TreVeyon Henderson, OL Ben Brown, CB Carlton Davis — or offensive lineman Walter Rouse, who currently finds himself in concussion protocol.
Another returnee
The NFL allows every team to bring up to eight players back from injured reserve during the regular season. With Gilliam now getting designated as such a return player, the Patriots have used up five of those already.
They previously designated wide receivers A.J. Brown and Mack Hollins as well as offensive linemen Marcus Bryan and the aforementioned Greg Van Roten for activation. All but Van Roten currently reside on the 53-man roster, with the O-lineman in the 21-day window alongside Gilliam.
This also means that only three spots are left for the six eligible players currently remaining on injured reserve: WR Romeo Doubs, RG Mike Onwenu, LG Alijah Vera-Tucker, ED Quintayvious Hutchins, LB Khalil Jacobs, and S Dell Pettus. Doubs and Vera-Tucker appear to be the frontrunners to be brought back from that group both considering their injuries and importance to the roster as a whole.
By the way, whether or not Gilliam (or Van Roten, for that matter) is actually activated to the 53-man roster is immaterial to the designation. He counts against those eight available return spots regardless.
