Teammates praise Phillip Dorsett’s evolution from one-trick pony to all-around threat

FOXBOROUGH — Eric Rowe could talk all day about Phillip Dorsett. Seriously.

Rowe is a chatty guy, but as the guy who is charged with covering him most of the time in practice, he can provide you with a pretty detailed look at the arc of his career since Dorsett first arrived in Foxborough roughly a year ago. And that’s why he wasn’t surprised to see what Dorsett accomplished in Sunday’s 27-20 win over the Texans.

According to Rowe, the talk around Dorsett started late in the spring when Dorsett’s route tree started to grow. In the process, he went from a one-dimensional guy to someone who was capable of doing much more in the New England passing game.

“The DBs, we were talking about Phillip this spring. A lot,” Rowe told BostonSportsJournal.com. “His routes got better.



“I mean, I was guarding him every day in practice, and his routes were getting a lot better. There was improvement there. Obviously, he’s really fast. But just for him to be able to break down now like he did (Sunday) and run routes and keep DBs guessing, that’s huge, instead of him just saying, ‘All right, I’m going deep.’”

Rowe even went so far as to call Dorsett a more complete receiver than the one that was acquired just before the start of the 2017 season.

“I’ve seen significant improvement from him, just through practice,” Rowe said. “The year before, he would just kind of run the deep routes. Now, this year, you can’t say that. He has a bigger route tree. It’s a credit to his hard work.”

With the departures of Danny Amendola, Brandin Cooks and Malcolm Mitchell this offseason, combined with his own emergence, allowed him to land a spot in Tom Brady’s circle of trust. He was perched on the quarterback’s shoulder much of the summer, working with him and the rest of the offensive skill position players during special teams’ portions of practice. On Sunday, it paid off.