Stop me if you’ve heard this before — the Patriots backfield has at times this summer looked a bit murky from a fantasy standpoint. We already knew this could be the case with Sony Michel, Rex Burkhead, and James White all back for 2019, but it became even more evident when the Patriots used a 3rd round pick on Damien Harris out of Alabama. Harris has looked great throughout camp and racked up over 100 total yards on 18 touches in the team’s 2nd preseason game, but left last night’s game against Carolina with a foot injury. Even before the injury — which likely isn’t anything major, for what it’s worth — Harris didn’t get any snaps with Tom Brady or the first-team offense, which doesn’t bode well for his potential for volume as the regular season approaches.
While Harris didn’t have the most enjoyable night of his young career, teammate Sony Michel looked healthy and explosive in limited early action. The team has taken it easy with Michel throughout camp in an effort to conserve his knees, and despite the fact that his longest run of the night was nullified by a holding call, fantasy owners should be encouraged by what they saw when Michel got some first-team snaps.
Michel has also made some noise as a receiver during camp, showing much-improved route running out of the backfield compared to his rookie year. It remains to be seen if this improvement will allow him to partially usurp James White‘s role as the primary pass-catching back, but that doesn’t seem likely. White’s chemistry with Tom Brady is strong and has been developing since Michel was a true freshman at Georgia; while Michel may get a few more aerial opportunities than he did in 2018, White’s role in New England is safe — for now, anyway.
The Wolf’s current rankings perfectly reflect these recent developments out of New England — Michel is currently the RB24, followed by White at RB29, and Harris rounding out the group at RB52. They’ll likely enter the regular season around the same spots, but as we know, positional battles in New England are always fluid and can change at the drop of a hat, so this is definitely a situation to monitor throughout the early part of the season.
