The surprising end-of-year Patriots news continued today with Malcolm Mitchell showing up in pads at practice. This means the Pats now have 21 days to activate him off of IR, though Mike Giardi reports that he could see game action as soon as this Sunday against the Jets in the season finale.
Source: Pats will “take it day by day” with Mitchell but believe he “has real chance” to make debut Sunday vs Jets
— Michael Giardi (@MikeGiardi) December 27, 2017
This is great news and I really didn’t expect to see Mitchell, who made a brief appearance at training camp before being put on IR just before the season started. I’ve already been banging the drum that getting Chris Hogan back would be a huge boost to the offense. Getting Mitchell back in the mix, even if it’s just to avoid using new bodies Phillip Dorsett and Kenny Britt, would be a big boost for the offense.
I still think Hogan is the bigger key, especially on third down. Last year in the playoffs Hogan had six catches on six third down targets while Mitchell had just one on three third down targets. Still, Mitchell was a vital part of the Super Bowl 51 comeback so if he can get back into game shape and make those kind of clutch catches with at most one regular season game under his belt, he could add a new twist for defenses to deal with.
It’s worth noting as well that during the 2016 regular season Mitchell and Hogan had identical third down targets/catches with 15 and 10.
If there’s one thing the offense could benefit from it would be some new targets for Brady as they’ve become more and more reliant on Rob Gronkowski and Dion Lewis to stay on schedule. Dorsett and Britt just haven’t emerged in the way that Hogan and Mitchell did last season and the second-year duo is a clear upgrade at the most critical time of year.
Nothing would be better to see both Hogan and Mitchell get a ton of snaps against the Jets. If they come through with a couple big catches each it will give defensive coordinators a lot to think about for the playoffs, and their won’t be much film to work with showing how the Pats could use them in conjunction with Brandin Cooks and Danny Amendola.