Patriots sign former Colts linebacker Trevor Bates to practice squad

The New England Patriots recently made a move to their practice squad by signing linebacker Trevor Bates, who was the Colts’ seventh round pick in this year’s draft.

The Colts drafted Bates out of Maine and seemed to have plans for him as a developmental guy, whether at inside linebacker or outside linebacker. He was with the Colts throughout the offseason, training camp, and preseason, but he was cut after the preseason ended. The Colts quickly signed him to their practice squad to begin the year, and he stayed there throughout the first several weeks of the season before he was signed to the active roster after the Colts cut Sio Moore. He played 22 special teams snaps in the game against the Bears, but he was cut shortly thereafter. Surprisingly, however, he wasn’t re-signed to the practice squad.

According to ESPN’s Mike Reiss the Patriots originally worked Bates out two weeks ago, and they’ve now decided to sign him to the practice squad. So the Colts’ seventh round pick has a new home, which is good for him. It’s interesting that the Colts didn’t bring him back to their practice squad, as Bates seemed like an intriguing developmental guy during the preseason for a team that is really quite bad at linebacker, but ultimately we’re talking about a bottom of the roster guy right now. If the Colts were to decide to bring Bates back they can sign him off of the Patriots practice squad to their active roster at any time, but if they wanted to keep him as an option to promote it would have made more sense to just re-sign him to the practice squad.