FOXBOROUGH — Julian Edelman’s season-ending knee injury last Friday was a blow to the Patriots offense. His absence also reduced the depth at punt returner, leaving Cyrus Jones as the front-runner to handle the workload.
Six days and another knee injury later, the outlook is even more grim.
Midway through the second quarter of Thursday’s game vs. the Giants, Jones’s right knee buckled as he defended a sideline pass.
He was on the ground for about two minutes before the Patriots medical staff helped him limp off the field.
Jones tore his ACL, a league source confirmed, and is out for the season. The Patriots now must find a punt returner in the six days before their season opener against the Chiefs next Thursday.
The internal options are limited. Receiver Danny Amendola is the most experienced at the position, with 147 career punt returns. Brandin Cooks has 13 returns and safety Patrick Chung has two.
With an extensive injury history of his own, Amendola may be too valuable to the offense to risk deploying at punt returner. He was hurt each of the past two seasons on punt returns. Cooks’s speed has added a dimension to the offense and the Patriots may want to shield him from the danger of punt returns.
Only a handful of Patriots have kick-return experience in the NFL. Safety Devin McCourty has taken 40 kickoffs, but has never returned a punt. None of the additional options are locks to make the 53-man roster, although Jones’s injury potentially opens another spot.
D.J. Foster is buried on the depth chart behind at least four other running backs, and possibly five if you include Brandon Bolden, who mostly plays special teams. But Foster has played well throughout the preseason at running back and kick returner, making a case for inclusion on the roster.
Last year, Foster returned one kickoff for 30 yards in the regular season. He returned three kickoffs for 71 yards Friday night.
Although he periodically practices with the punt returners in practice, his only NFL experience in those situations came in the 2016 preseason, fielding three punts for 32 yards.
Foster said there is a major difference between fielding punts and kickoffs.
“It’s pure concentration,’’ he said. “The flight of the ball is completely different. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of reps to get comfortable. And that’s all it is, just comfortability being back there and making a good judgment on that ball.’’
Running back Dion Lewis is another potential option. In last season’s AFC Divisional playoff game, he returned a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown, but he’s never returned a punt in his NFL career.
Will Likely, an undrafted rookie cornerback out of Maryland, has experience in college.
In his junior year, Likely returned two punts for touchdowns and averaged 18.2 yards per attempt.
He had six touchdowns (four on punts and two on kickoffs) in his four-year college career.
Likely, who hasn’t played much this preseason, fielded two punts Thursday after Jones exited, returning them for a combined 7 yards.
“He’s been out there every day,’’ Belichick said. “He’s been doing it every day. He returned a few punts today. We’ll see how it goes.’’
Belichick’s options are to work internally, make a trade, or shop the free agent market. NFL rosters must be cut from 90 to 53 by 4 p.m. Saturday, so the Patriots will likely survey the flood of free agents for a returner.
Belichick is a stickler for ball security. Even though Jones fumbled five times on returns last year, he looked sharp throughout this preseason, and had a 32-yard return in the game at Houston.
“There’s a lot of situations that come into play, and we just try to cover them thoroughly and give the players some guidelines,’’ Belichick said Aug. 20.
“But each one’s a little bit different and the ball, the kick, the hang time, the coverage, what our call is and so forth — there’s a lot that plays into it.’’
Follow Brad Almquist on Twitter at @bquist13.
