Before the NFL’s off-season period reaches its peak, NESN.com will feature hidden Patriots: players in the New England squad who haven’t been noticed for one reason or another. Next up: the tight end Dalton Keene.
New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick hinted that Dalton Keene faced an uphill battle for playing time as a rookie after the tight end was selected in the third round of the NFL’s Draft 2020.
And that was before Keene suffered a neck injury before the season and a knee injury in the middle of the campaign.
Keene, 21, played only 140 snaps in six games as a rookie. He ended the 2020 season with three 16-yard receptions with a fumble.
“I mean, when you watch Dalton play, you just don’t see a lot of the things that we see,” said Belichick last April, after the draft. “Virginia Tech’s attack didn’t translate much into a New England Patriot attack. This is also not uncommon with other players. It is what it is. I think the things you saw him do, which was blocking, the effort to block, the resistance, the ability to make plays with the ball in his hands and, certainly, the intention of the attack to give him the ball was impressive. They did a lot of things to try to catch the ball for him in one way or another: hand it over to him, throw it at him, put it in different places so that he could run or catch and run with it. This is what you saw.
“I already talked to him about it, which is going to be a big transition for him in terms of learning our system, being I would say more detailed, more specific in many assignments, mainly in the game of passes, learning how to block in closed environments. Again, it shows a lot of skill to do this in size, speed and so on. Only he didn’t do that much. He played a little in the backfield, not as a defender, but half off the ball, sometimes a local defender, but not really aligned behind the defender, but aligned in the backfield, outside the lines. A slightly different location than we would normally use. He’s a smart kid. He’s athletic. He is strong. He’s tough. I see no reason why he cannot and does not make these adjustments in time. Let’s work on it. “
“In time.” Be patient.
Of Keene’s 140 offensive snaps, 102 were spent inline at the tight end, 26 came in the slot, nine off the line and three in the backfield, by PFF. It is not yet clear where Keene will end up playing in the NFL, although he is probably a tight end. The Patriots can also choose to convert it into a fullback that receives passes in the same mold as veteran San Francisco 49ers blocker Kyle Juszczyk.
Keene, who was drafted in 101st overall with a compensatory choice at the end of the third round, is far from the first tight end to fight to get out of the gate as a rookie. Among 29 tight ends drawn in the third or fourth round in the past five years, 14 recorded less than 100 yards in their debut seasons and 22 posted less than 200 yards.
As Belichick mentioned, Keene had to adjust to a very different offense from Virginia Tech. He also did not have the benefit of traditional OTAs and minicamps and participated in a truncated training camp without pre-season. Keene missed the first two weeks of the season due to a neck injury and later spent time on the reserve due to a knee injury. The intent here is not to make excuses for Keene, and there is certainly no guarantee that he will burst in 2021, but at least there are several obvious causes for his struggles as a rookie, in addition to talent shortages.
Keene is one of four tight end on the current Patriots 90-player roster, where he joined fellow Devin Asiasi from the third round of 2020 and veterans Ryan Izzo and Matt LaCosse. The Patriots also have defender Danny Vitale on their list of 90 players. Fullback Jakob Johnson, an agent with no exclusive rights, is likely to return as well.
Patriots’ tight ends produced just 254 yards in 2020, which could cause the team to look for more help outside the squad. Even if the Patriots don’t recruit a player like Kyle Pitts, sign a free agent like Hunter Henry or switch to a tight end like Evan Engram, they should see more production out of position with LaCosse returning from his opt-out and Asiasi and Keene giving supposed leaps of the second year.
It would be a risk simply to assume that Keene will significantly improve his production in Year 2, but if he does, it would also allow the Patriots to spend cap wages or drawing capital on other positions of need if they bet on their choices in the 2020 draft.
There is a lot to like about Keene from his time with the Hokies, despite his lack of gross production. He was a natural ball carrier and was impressed by a 4.71-second 40-yard run, 7.07-second three-cone drill, 4.19-second short shuttle, 34-inch vertical jump and 10-inch wide jump feet and 5 inches as one of the most athletic edges of last winter’s NFL Scouting Combine.
If Keene’s athletics can translate into more production in Year 2 and beyond, then the Patriots can have an exciting player in choosing the third round. But it is also fair to doubt Keene based on his lack of counting numbers in 2020.
Miniature photo via Winslow Townson / USA TODAY Sports Images