In their first few weeks as teammates, Dre’Mont Jones saw a lot of himself in fellow pass rusher Harold Landry.
“Harold’s like, the white version of me,” Jones said with a laugh.
Their positional coach, Mike Smith, sees it similarly.
“I do now. At first I was like, I don’t know. But the more you spend with them, they’re both quiet at first, and until you get to know both of them, they’re really outspoken,” Smith said. “They’re both deep thinkers. They both study and understand the game. They’re both older
guys, so they understand the consistency part of it and the routine part of it.
“It’s almost kind of creepy. They’re starting to look the same to me now. I’m starting to look at both of them. But I think it’s the consistency part. It’s how hard they work. If I say consistency, the first person I think of in the room is Harold Landry. From what he eats, to how he works out, to how he practices, to how he shows up every single day, he’s like that. So Harold’s very similar to Dre’Mont.”
Adding Jones was the Patriots’ first addition of the offseason, as they inked the pass rusher to a three-year, $39.5 million contract on the first day of the legal tampering period.
Jones was coming off a career-year split between the Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens — which included a pair of sacks against the Patriots with both teams — and one trait specifically caught the eye of the Patriots coaching staff in their evaluation process.
“The way he works. We saw it on film in the offseason when we looked at free agents, but he plays with effort and finish, which is our number one core value here as a team and as a defense,” defensive coordinator Zak Kuhr said. “He just goes about his business. He wants to get better, even though he’s a higher-year vet. He wants to learn from Smitty, he wants to learn from Vrabes — all of us — of what he can do to do his job better. And he takes great pride in his job.”
While Landry was not on the field this spring as he continues to recover from the knee injury that hampered him for much of last season, Jones has served as the Patriots’ top edge rusher throughout the offseason program.
Jones, who has long admired Landry’s get-off ability, hopes to soon be getting after opposing quarterbacks alongside him. In the meantime, he has brought that same relentless effort to the practice field throughout the spring.
“He’s tough, he’s physical, he’s a good kid,” Smith said. “He’s a student of the game. He plays multiple positions. The more you can do in this league, the more valuable you’re going to be. He’s stand-up, he’s got his hand in the ground. [Media can’t] be here at a bunch of practices, but man, he’s got a motor now and it’s contagious.”
“He looks and he plays like a Patriot.”
