Fourth year Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes has been a no-show thus far for offseason activities. This includes both offseason workouts as well as OTA’s – which began for veterans last week and will continue this week.
However, according to the Boston Globe’s Ben Volin, Spikes has no intentions to skip mandatory minicamp next month:
A league source said Tuesday that Spikes, set to make $630,000 this year in the final year of his rookie contract, will continue to work out on his own and will not be at the Patriots’ OTAs this week (it runs through Thursday, with Wednesday’s practice open to the media).
But Spikes will be there when the Patriots hold their mandatory minicamp on June 11-13.
Spikes is one of those players who has a unique style of doing things, and it’s good to see that this is more of a personal choice than it is anything to do with his contract.
Nonetheless, the team can’t be all too thrilled that Spikes is skipping activities that just about every other player will be attending. It’s one thing to skip workouts – plenty of players do that. But the majority of players that choose to work out on their own choose to fly into town for OTA’s. As we know, Patriots coach Bill Belichick considers this time of the year a critical part of the team building process. When you’re not there to be a part of that team building process, it is somewhat noteworthy.