We'll start with RB Dion Lewis, who hasn't been seen at Patriots organized team activities this spring while he rehabs from a left knee injury. But The Providence Journal has some encouraging news about Lewis, right from the horse's mouth.
"It's good to be around everybody. Just happy to be back," Lewis said at Tom Brady's annual flag football event at Harvard. "Just working as hard as I can and just taking every day step by step."
Lewis took part (lightly) in the charity game along with other teammates, including WR Danny Amendola, who also hasn't been at OTAs. It remains to be seen if either will set foot on New England's practices fields for this week's three-day mini-camp.
We've also found a pair of stories from the Boston Herald, both of which involve Patriots with perceived contract questions: CB Malcolm Butler and TE Rob Gronkowski.
The first one examines the predicament Butler finds himself in given his restricted free agent status after this season.
"With all the other unrestricted [Patriots] free agents coming up on the books [after 2016] — players pivotal to the Patriots' success — Butler needs to sit in the backseat for the time being," the *Herald *asserts.
Elsewhere, Gronk got his annual head-shaving to help kids with cancer. He also gave a few buzz cuts as well as receiving one, but he wasn't receptive to discussing his own contract situation, as the Herald recounts.
“I’m all good. I’m happy,” he declared.
WEEI.com has an interesting Tom Brady feature about the man who tried to convince TB12 to play pro baseball instead of football. This, after Brady posted on his Facebook page last week an acknowledgement of the anniversary of his having been drafted by the former Montreal Expos.
"I remember thinking after his second Super Bowl win that if I pushed him and he ended up in baseball, I could have ruined this guy's great football career and changed the history of the NFL forever," the story's subject says in part.
Brady also posted on social media this weekend a photo and caption paying tribute to Muhammad Ali, the late boxing and cultural icon.
Meanwhile, it was a tough weekend for former Patriots CB Aqib Talib, who's going to miss his trip to the White House with his Super Bowl Champion Broncos teammates today. A USA TODAY story explains why.
The weekend went much better for Robert Kraft, however. The Boston Globe offers an inside look at a surprise 75th birthday bash thrown for the Patriots owner.
Finally, CSNNE.com has an update on Nate Ebner's attempt to make the US Olympic Rugby squad.
"[T]wo weeks from now we're going to start camp for the Olympics so they can finalize the team," Ebner revealed in a radio interview. "It's going to be a tough go…. I definitely have my work cut out for me."
