The Patriots have been able to count on their superstars all season, but a few unsung heroes also have provided surprising lifts.
Jamie Collins has been nothing short of spectacular thus far in his second stint in New England, while Danny Shelton and Lawrence Guy both are in the midst of career seasons. ESPN’s Bill Barnwell acknowledged a few of the Patriots’ under-the-radar players could have cracked his All-Underrated team, but a rookie proved to be New England’s lone representative on the 24-man squad: punter Jake Bailey.
From Barnwell:
There were versions of this team with guys such as Danny Shelton, Joe Thuney and Jamie Collins on the list, but at the end of the day, the only Patriots player to make the All-Underrated team was a punter. You probably could have guessed that it would take a great prospect for Bill Belichick to give up his love for lefty punters and turn things over to the right-footed Bailey, whom the Pats drafted in the fifth round.
Bailey has played like a 10-year veteran. Aided by the efforts of Matthew Slater and the newly acquired Justin Bethel in what amounts to a special-teams superhero squad, the Patriots lead the league in value generated off of punts. (Part of that includes blocking punts, although FO’s numbers don’t incorporate Sunday’s block in the win over the Cowboys yet.) Bailey has punted a ton for a Patriots offense that rarely turns the ball over but hasn’t been good enough to score very much, which helps drive that figure. He also has fielded most of the work on kickoffs, where the Patriots ranked sixth at FO heading into the week. I wouldn’t count out Belichick secretly teaching Bailey how to punt lefty for a key punt sometime in January, either.
Bailey’s importance has been put on full display in recent weeks. The Stanford product arguably was New England’s MVP in its Week 11 win over the Eagles in Philadelphia, booming eight well-placed punts in a game where field position ruled the day as both offenses struggled. Bailey came a bit back down to Earth in the Patriots’ gritty win over the Cowboys on Sunday, but he saved his best punt for last, dropping it on Dallas’ 8-yard line with just under three minutes to play as his team hung on to a four-point lead.
Many were surprised by how quickly Bailey usurped Ryan Allen in the preseason as New England’s top punter, especially considering how well the latter performed in Super Bowl LIII. But as the season unfolded, it became easy to see why Bill Belichick invested a fifth-round pick in the 22-year-old, who’s already racked up two AFC Special Teams Player of the Week awards.
