Getty Gunner Olszewski
The New England Patriots‘ Gunner Olszewski has suffered a setback in the recovery for an injured foot. He will now be placed on injured reserve and will miss at least three weeks.
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Gunner Was Replaced on the 53-Man Roster, But Not By a Wide Receiver
The Patriots made a flurry of moves on Saturday. In addition to sending Olszewski to injured reserve, they called up kicker Nick Folk, who will be the starter in Week 1 over rookie Justin Rohrwasser, and defensive tackle Xavier Williams.
One might have thought the Patriots would call up training camp standout Devin Ross to replace Olszewski or even another of the undrafted free agent wide receivers on the practice squad like Isaiah Zuber.
That wasn’t the case as the team will go with four wide receivers for Week 1 in N’Keal Harry, Jakobi Meyers, Julian Edelman, and Damiere Byrd. This means that the team won’t be running any true five wide receiver looks, but they might be sending running backs like James White and J.J. Taylor, or tight ends Devin Asiasi into those positions in an attempt to create some mismatches in space.
This is going to be an interesting week, to say the least when it comes to observing what the Patriots are doing on offense.
Who Returns Kicks and Punts for the Patriots With Gunner Unavailable?
Olszewski’s other responsibility, besides being the team’s likely third receiver, was to return punts and maybe kicks. With him out of action, there is a question as to who will take on this role.
CLNS’ Evan Lazar ran a poll on his Twitter account to gauge what fans are expecting the Patriots to do when it comes to punt returning duties.
With Gunner Olszewski out tomorrow, who is returning punts for the #Patriots? Write-in votes accepted.
At the time of publication, rookie safety Kyle Dugger was winning the poll handily with 43 percent of the vote and more than 2,200 fans having participated. I’m leaning more toward Taylor, the undrafted rookie who was recently called up from the practice squad after Damien Harris went on IR.
The 5’5″ Taylor has tons of versatility, a low center of gravity, and underrated speed on the field. He’s tough to see in traffic and that could be a benefit for him in the return game. With tons of depth at running back already, it would seem the primary benefit for him being on the 53-man roster at this point would be to play a role in the return game.
We’ll find out on Sunday.