Bill Belichick Explains Why Patriots Haven’t Filled 90th Roster Spot

The New England Patriots have had an open roster spot for over a week since releasing wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell. With mounting injuries at many positions especially at running back and still 3 preseason games left on the schedule it is curious why haven’t the Patriots filled the roster opening yet?

NESN asked head coach Bill Belichick about the vacant spot recently. “I’d say a combination of if there was a situation where we thought there was somebody we would want on the team at that spot, then we’d put them on there,” Belichick said. “If there wasn’t somebody that stood out in that way to us for, again, whatever the reasons are — I’m not saying the player isn’t good enough — maybe we just don’t have a spot for him at the position that he is at. Sometimes there are players out there that you wouldn’t mind adding on to your roster if you had a spot at the right position. Sometimes you end up adding players to your roster that you wouldn’t necessarily want to add to your roster but you need them and then you can put them into a competitive mix due to your lack of depth at that position.

Belichick continues, “There’s a number of things on that. If you have an open spot and you don’t really know what’s going to happen then you’re able to use it. If you don’t have it and then something happens, then you’ve got to create one. Sometimes that’s another set of dominoes that gets tipped over. Fortunately, we haven’t really needed to fill that, but those are the ways of looking at it.”

It will be interesting to watch exactly what the evil genius has in store for the vacant roster spot and what additional cuts may be coming soon as the Patriots are overstocked at some positions as they head towards September.