The New England Patriots defense was standing tall against Drake Maye and the first-team offense down inside the red area during Monday\u2019s practice. But facing a 4th-and-3 after head coach Mike Vrabel called a timeout, the QB floated a ball to the back right corner of the end zone under pressure.<\/p>\n
What looked like a prayer somehow ended in Kayshon Boutte\u2019s hands, as the receiver went up-and-over the cornerback in coverage and appeared to tip-toe along the sideline for a touchdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say I for sure caught the ball. I think the main focus was getting both feet in bounds, which I think I did,\u201d Boutte said Tuesday. \u201cIt was a fourth-and-3, got to have it situation. Drake just kind of got flushed out of the pocket. Just a receiver making plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming off a career season in which he caught 43 passes for 589 yards and three touchdowns, Boutte has primarily spent training camp as the team\u2019s top X-receiver along the outside. He\u2019s turned that into steady production as well, such as the 50-yard touchdown he hauled in from Joshua Dobbs in Friday night\u2019s in-stadium scrimmage.<\/p>\n
Later in the scrimmage, Boutte caught an intermediate dig route in a two-minute situation that helped Team White work into field goal range.<\/p>\n
The consistent production has been a welcomed sight for New England\u2019s offense, as Boutte put a focus on being in better physical condition this offseason in order to hit the ground running.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my main focus this offseason was coming back in shape,\u201d Boutte said. \u201cI feel like I came back in shape, picked up where I left off at and not getting in shape while we\u2019re going. I think that was my main focus, just coming back ready to roll.\u201d<\/p>\n
After being a top high school recruit, an ankle injury that required surgery prior to the NFL Combine led to an underwhelming 40-yard dash and Boutte ultimately falling to the sixth-round \u2014 where New England selected him 187th overall.<\/p>\n
Now several years removed from the injury, Boutte shared he is playing worry-free on the football field which he hopes will let him take another step forward this fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust kind of thinking about last season and the little success I had, just wanted to build off that,\u201d Boutte said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to set myself back [by having] these high expectations, so it\u2019s just kind of keeping myself on that path.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots defense was standing tall against Drake Maye and the first-team offense down inside the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52113,20133,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-266292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-new-england","10":"tag-new-england-patriots","11":"tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","12":"tag-new-england-patriots-training-camp","13":"tag-newengland","14":"tag-newenglandpatriots","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114981753878283272","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}