Latest Patriots-Chase Winovich update totally feels like fake news

Patriots fans will have a tough time believing this Chase Winovich update.

The ineptitude of the New England Patriots’ offense in 2020 largely took away from the glaring struggles and jarring snap counts on defense, which ranked 26th in rushing yards allowed per game (131.4) and 15th in total yards (353.8). Those numbers aren’t awful, but they’re a far cry from what the unit posted last season.

When it comes to snap counts, however, perhaps the most notable takeaway was outside linebacker Chase Winovich’s inconsistent role despite him flashing more potential and promise than any of the other players ahead of him in the positional pecking order.

Well, we might have just found out why the 2019 second-round pick was largely deployed in specific packages. According to Greg Bedard of the Boston Sports Journal, he has a tendency to be dismissive when receiving criticism from coaching staff members.

After claiming that the Patriots might never trust him to play a three-down role on the edge, Bedard went off on a tangent about the Michigan’s product apparent lack of discipline when it comes to keeping his mouth shut.

"“There’s also the issue of his mouth, which is a concern internally because he rarely thinks he’s wrong and is a bit of a locker room lawyer (sounds like someone around here who writes about football),” Bedard wrote. “I’ve floated moving him to (inside linebacker) but that has been shot down because if of the lack of faith he will consistently do the correct things within the scheme.”"

This report, which is said to be sourced from people close to the Patriots, is so scathing that we almost want to deem it as fake news. Again, we don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, but everything we’ve seen and heard from Winovich suggests he’s a player who’s simply hungry for more playing time.

Some of his comments were admittedly farfetched, but prior to this report we never got the indication he was detrimental to locker room morale. If anything, we theorized that his enigmatic and jaunty personality would have a positive impact in that department.

Again, there’s no way to know for sure if this report is credible or not, but it really makes you wonder if the 25-year-old is having some trouble adopting the famed “Patriot way.”

Whatever the case, there definitely appears to be some tension between both parties and we seriously hope they get it sorted out in short order because Winovich is approaching the all-important third year of his rookie contract in 2021.

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