Ty Montgomery considered "day to day" after leaving Thursday's practice with apparent injury
FOXBORO -- Patriots running back/wide receiver Ty Montgomery suffered an apparent injury during the team's second practice of training camp on Thursday. After Montgomery missed all but one game last season, any injury is a bit of a concern with the 30-year-old.
But Bill Belichick didn't sound too worried about it on Friday. The Pats head coach didn't offer up a full diagnosis on Montgomery (remember, he's not a doctor), but classified the versatile offensive weapon as "day to day" at his Friday morning press conference.
Montgomery figures to fill the role as New England's pass-catching back this season, and is even listed as a wide receiver on the team's official roster. Rhamondre Stevenson is atop the depth chart, with second-year backs Pierre Strong Jr. and Kevin Harris filling in the blanks between Stevenson and Montgomery.
Strong and Harris played sparingly during their rookie seasons, but have shown a lot of improvement during minicamp and the early days of training camp.
"Two other guys that have taken a big jump in year two," Belichick said of the second-year backs on Friday. "Good offseasons, way ahead of where they were last year. Both showed flashes of good things last year, and the experience and confidence with them is much greater than it was last year.
'The biggest challenge with all backs is pass protection, blitz pickups in the passing game. All those guys are more comfortable carrying the ball than some of the other things that come with the position. But they've worked hard on that so we'll see how it goes," Belichick added.
We'll see if Montgomery is able to return to practice when training camp resumes on Sunday. And if it is a more serious issue than Belichick was letting on Friday, we'll see if that encourages the Patriots to make a bigger push for free agent running back Dalvin Cook in the near future.
