As a young NFL player, it’s probably a good thing to have the support of your team captains. Trey Flowers certainly has that from New England Patriots linebacker Dont’a Hightower.
“Trey’s been one of the hardest workers on the team,” Hightower said Thursday morning. “He’s one of the guys who’s first in, last out. He stays hard after practice. For him to be playing the way he’s playing, it doesn’t surprise me at all. I’m impressed, absolutely, but it’s expected from a guy who works as hard as he does.
Flowers has been one of the Patriots’ breakout stars this season, racking up a team-high seven sacks (all in the last nine games) after spending almost all of last season on injured reserve. The young defensive end’s rise to prominence has mirrored a period of great improvement for New England’s defense as a whole, which finished the regular season as the NFL leader in points allowed.
“The communication has gotten a lot better,” Hightower said. “I think guys have gotten comfortable. I think we’ve kind of got that chemistry kind of built. There have been times now that me and KV (fellow linebacker Kyle Van Noy) can kind of just look at each other, and we kind of know what to expect, what we’re thinking. Whenever you get that, you can play a lot faster and kind of anticipate things.
“You try and get a jump on the offense. I think we’re finally at that point.”
Some additional notes from Thursday:
— As safety Devin McCourty did one day earlier, Hightower doled out high praise for Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, who reportedly will interview for multiple head-coaching vacancies this weekend.
“I love him,” the linebacker said. “He’s a great coach and even a better man, so looking down the road, hopefully he gets what he deserves.”
Hightower added: “I mean, Matty P. is a smart guy. He’s a rocket scientist, man.”
— Sports Illustrated on Wednesday published a story about Calvin Riley, a 20-year-old California man who was shot and killed this past summer.
Riley attended Tom Brady’s alma mater, Serra High School in San Mateo, and upon hearing the tragic news, Brady decided to send a handwritten letter to the young man’s family offering his condolences.
“I’ve had different people pick me up at different times,” Brady explained Thursday, “and it’s just, you always appreciate those things and you always remember them. I could never imagine having to go through what the family’s had to go through over the course of this period. I think our team does a lot of things and a lot of players in our locker room do a lot of things to try to make positive impacts in the community when we can. You hate for it to be under those circumstances, but unfortunately, some tragic things happen, and you just do what you can do to help.”
— Tight end Martellus Bennett is preparing to play in his first playoff game since the 2009 season, but he said he won’t start getting too pumped up for it until after this weekend’s wild-card round is over and the Patriots know their divisional-round opponent.
“It’s the bye week right now,” Bennett said, “so I’m just chilling. I just save my energy, build up as it goes on. There’s no reason to have a lot of highs and lows this week, so I’m just trying to have good focus in practice and get better this week, take some time off and see what I can do to contribute and make the team better for the next game. We don’t know who we’re playing, so it’s hard to get excited about ghosts.”
If the Miami Dolphins defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, they’ll travel to Foxboro next Saturday. If Pittsburgh wins, the Patriots will host the winner of Saturday’s Oakland Raiders-Houston Texans matchup.
Thumbnail photo via Isaiah J. Downing/USA TODAY Sports Images
