After his career-best 2017, Titans make Dion Lewis one of NFL's highest-paid RBs

Dion Lewis is off to Tennessee.

After three productive years in New England, the running back is set to sign with the Titans. According to a league source, the four-year contract is for $23.5 million, with $11.4 million in guaranteed money. It’ll make him one of the top 10 highest-paid running backs in the league.

In his time with the Patriots, the undersized (5-foot-8, 195 pounds) back provided some larger-than-life moments. The stats were great, but all you really needed to know was the fact that New England was 32-4 when he put in a Patriots uniform.

“I’m small but I ain’t little,” Lewis would tell reporters, and he proved it on a regular basis. He finished the 2017 season with career highs in carries, rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. For a team that had some questions coming into the year about the ground game following the loss of LeGarrette Blount in free agency, Lewis delivered last year, and earned respect from teammates and coaches.

“He’s an unbelievable player,” Rob Gronkowski said. “He’s a beast for his size. I look up to him, the way he plays, the way he doesn’t let people take him down.”

“I would love to take a lot of credit for what he’s become,” running backs coach Ivan Fears told me late last season. “But Dion is a guy who accepted what was put in front of him, whether it was from Bill, or whether it was from Josh (McDaniels), or whether it was from me, and he listened. And he followed it up by trying to do what was said. That’s how he’s done what he did. That’s what’s made him so productive. You can coach your ass off with most guys and nothing really happens. Dion was really receptive to everything. He took it in the right way. And tried to do it the right way.”



Truth be told, in New England, you could measure his career into two distinct parts — pre-injury and post-injury. Lewis was rolling through the early stages of the 2015 season. In the first seven games of the 2015 season, he had 49 carries for 234 yards and a pair of touchdowns, to go with 36 catches for 388 yards and two receiving TDs. That’s when he ripped up his knee, suffering a devastating season-ending injury.

“You have to give him all the credit in the world, because he did the work,” Fears said after Lewis' knee injury. “Every injury he had, Dion would be in there. He’d be in there and it’d be a holiday. I’d say, ‘Aren’t you going away?’ He’d say ‘No.’ Everyone is leaving? He stayed. He worked. He worked endlessly to get himself healthy. I mean to the point where I would be worried about him. I’d say ‘Boy, you need a damn life. You need to get out of this building.’”

After spending the bulk of the offseason rehabbing, he returned midway through following year. His touches were cut back from the workload he enjoyed at the start of the 2015 season, but he still managed to put together a successful year, one that ended with him 283 rushing yards and 94 receiving yards and his first career a Super Bowl ring.

In truth, 2017 was his greatest year. Finally all the way back, he posted career highs in games played (16), carries (180), yards (896), rushing touchdowns (6). He was a legit between-the-tackles threat, playing big despite his size. While he finished with several terrific runs last season, this one — featuring a savage stiff arm — was our favorite.



BSJ analysis: So what happens to the Patriots from here?

Lewis was a terrific story, a back who overcame a ghastly injury history, poor personnel decisions and some bad depth charts before arriving in New England to become one of the most dynamic runners in the league.

At the same time, considering the Patriots history with running backs, this move is hardly a surprise. Bill Belichick has never had a back rush for 1,000 yards in back-to-back seasons going all the way back to his time in Cleveland. And New England is one of the only teams in the league that can say it’s had seven different rushing leaders in the last 10 seasons. They certainly weren’t going to go above and beyond for the Pitt product.

Going forward, the Patriots still have Mike Gillislee and Brandon Bolden under contract, while Rex Burkhead is set to hit free agency. Considering some of the free-agent options that are still out there — including Jerick McKinnon — and the fact that this is considered a very good draft class when it comes to running backs, I’d fully expect the Patriots to invest at the position in both free agency and in the draft.