The Buccaneers were eager to get rid of running back LeGarrette Blount this offseason, and they finally found a taker during the third day of the NFL draft, when Patriots coach Bill Belichick agreed to give up a seventh-round draft pick and sprinter-turned-running back-turned-sprinter Jeff Demps.
Giving up anything for Blount might seem like a questionable decision, considering that there’s a good chance he would have been available for nothing in a few months if the Bucs cut him before the season. But Belichick says he likes what he got in the big back.
“We felt like we got good value for Blount,” Belichick said on SiriusXM NFL Radio, via ESPN.com. “He’s a guy that we basically gave up Demps for, and Demps, I’d say, is less of a proven player and there were some other issues with Jeff. With LeGarrette, he’s been a productive player. He didn’t play as much last year with the emergence of [Doug] Martin down there, so I can certainly understand that Tampa was in. We felt like he was a talented guy that we wanted to have on our team.”
If Blount can regain the form of his rookie year, when he had 201 carries for 1,007 yards, then the Patriots got great value for him. That, however, is a big “if": Blount was largely invisible last year, and there have been several reports that call his work ethic into question.
Still, Demps seems more interested in his track career than in being an NFL player, and plenty of seventh-round picks don’t make the 53-man roster anyway. It’s easy to see why Belichick thinks Blount can be good value, at such a low price.