Patriots sign Dion Lewis, Antonio Johnson to reserve/future deals

Posted by PlexusGroupe on December 31, 2014, 8:32 PM EST
Getty Images

The Patriots signed three veteran free agents to reserve/future deals on Wednesday: tailback Dion Lewis, defensive tackle Antonio Johnson and defensive end/outside linebacker Rufus Johnson.

The signings of all three players were disclosed in the NFL’s daily personnel notice.

The 24-year-old Lewis was most recently with the Colts, who released him in September. Lewis has also had stints with the Eagles and Browns. Mike Lombardi, now an assistant to the Patriots’ coaching staff, was the Browns’ General Manager when the club acquired Lewis from Philadelphia in 2013.

Lewis (5-8, 195) was a fifth-round pick of the Eagles in 2011.

Antonio Johnson (6-3, 312) has the most experience of the trio. A fifth-round selection of the Titans in 2007, the 30-year-old Johnson has appeared in 83 regular-season games (52 starts), with the bulk of his experience coming with Indianapolis from 2008 through 2012. The Titans released Johnson with an injury settlement (knee) in September.

Rufus Johnson, 24, was a sixth-round pick of New Orleans in 2013. The Saints waived him in August. Johnson (6-5, 272) got looks at both outside linebacker and defensive end with the Saints.

Permalink 10 Comments Feed for comments Back to top

10 responses to “Patriots sign Dion Lewis, Antonio Johnson to reserve/future deals”

  1. There go the Patriots – cheating again… breaking unwritten rules left and right about signing players cut by other teams…

    Oh – and they signed a player cut by Indy in September?

    Obviously that’s just intendended to get as many plays from the guy from the 2 weeks in September he played there in case they face Indy in the playoffs

    This is probably going to result in a tampering charge fro Goodell for some reason – I’m not sure how, but it will happen, as Goodell needs to distract attention from the owner of the Jets tampering with Revis (and probably the coach of Buffalo)

  2. I don’t like the Patriots by why am i thinking that Coach Bill Belichick knows something that nobody else does ?? He a shrewd, shrewd, intelligent man…………….I’ll get my popcorn handy.

  5. Adding depth and insurance against injury going into the playoffs. It’s also about evaluating players on an ongoing basis…for future reference. It ain’t rocket science. It’s just smart management and doing due diligence to know all you can know about available players to see if they can help the team.

  6. None of them are currently signed to the Pats roster, these deals start once the new league year starts in March, so the players will go through the offseason process with the Pats but none of them will be considered part of the team until March.

    I’m not a Pats fan by any means but this isn’t underhanded or cheating, it’s something that 31 other teams are doing as well.

  7. Not a pats fan. This isn’t cheating but I’m sure Billicheat is cheating. He is always willing to push the rules and as we all know he cheated his way to three ***.

  8. Glad to see chippy’s new year’s resolution wasn’t to stop crying! Hahaha.

  9. It’s a sign of how the haters have nothing to stand on that they’re reduced to accusing the Pats of cheating when they are doing something entirely within the rules that every team engages in.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to leave a comment. Not a member? Register now!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.