FOXBOROUGH — With access to some of the assistant coaches earlier this week, we were able to pose some of the burning questions that have been swirling about the Patriots — mostly on the offensive side of the ball.
While the Patriots have featured many assistant coaches that mostly give coach-speak and aren't all that forthcoming, Ivan Fears and Dante Scarnecchia — the two longest-serving Patriots assistants — usually are pretty honest when they can be.
Here are some of the topics we discussed, and our analysis of what they had to say, starting with third-round draft pick Damien Harris, who has been active for just two games and has a total of three carries.
DAMIEN HARRIS
Fears was asked about this several times and he was adamant that it was just a numbers game when it came to the rookie.
"I love what he did in the preseason, I really did," Fears said. "He’s been very good here during the year. He hasn’t really had the opportunity to do anything out there but the couple shots he had in the one game, he ran well so I think he’s just waiting his turn.
"The other guys are healthy. They’re all healthy and all doing well. You can’t play them all. Sorry, you just can’t play them all.
"He’s done everything he’s supposed to do. He’s looked good, made the right reads, he’s run hard, he’s got vision, he’s got all the athletic ability, just waiting his turn. We’ll see what happens when he gets his shot.
"He’s doing great. He’s handling it very well. I’m sure he’s eager as hell too to be out there as well. But he’s going great, he’s working his butt off and he’s ready and he’s waiting for a turn. Who am I taking out? They’re all playing their asses off. Damien has done nothing but good work out there. He’s doing well on the field and I think we’ll be very happy with him when he has to play. I think we’ll be OK.
"He just needs a chance. I’ve got four guys that are really playing well, including Brandon Bolden. I can’t get this guy out there. I really can’t. I can’t carry five backs to the game. It’s just impossible."
"I’m happy he’s doing a great job, he’s still pretty healthy, he’s playing well in my mind. He’s doing a lot of good things but like everybody he’s got his moments where he’s hurting us, he’s making a mistake too. He’s got to correct those mistakes, be a little bit more consistent in what he’s doing and I think we’ll be more productive overall.
"I thought he tried to run hard this week, he was running the ball well. The good news for us is that Josh (McDaniels) is continuing to call the run game and giving us a chance, keeping us a little more balanced. You want to be more productive but at least we’re balanced right now and we need to keep that up. We need to stop going backwards. Some of his decisions, he can’t take a chance and say I’m going to bounce this thing. He’s got to frigging get downhill. Nothing there? Get downhill run into somebody and let’s go.
"I’m very happy with Sony, I’ll put it that way."
"I think we look at it this way, what is the best way to get a productive run? Who do you have to use and how can they do it? If that means no fullback, then no fullback. But if that means somebody's got to get back there instead of the line, maybe we’ll use him there. We don’t have to have a fullback, believe me. But it’s what you’ve got."
"He’s caught a couple of passes … he had a game with three catches! You talk to Brady about that! Tell him to throw it to him. He’s fine. It’s just not a big role that we have to have from him. He’s there, he’s in the passing game. Just the way it sort of works out, we have a couple of guys who are really good at it. It’s kind of hard to get everybody the fricking ball! Damn! (laughing) We just spread it around as much as we can, we really do."
"I think that we would all like to see him out there, he would like to see himself back out there, and I think he’s a really good football player, but I don’t know when that’s going to be," Scarnecchia siad. "I honestly can’t tell you when it’s going to be. I know he’s working hard to get himself out there. I like him, he’s a good player. But he has to get back out there and he has to stay out there too, that’s important."
"I’m not going to go into that, that’s an in-house structure that I don’t think needs to be said publicly," he said.
"We think James has been in our system for three years, he knows how we do things, and I think he’s the best-prepared guy to do what we needed. That’s why we started him yesterday. That’s it. He’s a good player, tough guy."