Patriots announce new jersey numbers for N’Keal Harry, Gunner Olszewski, Jamie Collins, and others

The NFL’s 2019 regular season is only three days away, which means that teams are putting final touches on their rosters. One part of that — one of comparatively little significance compared to roster cutdowns — is making sure that every player on a 53-man roster wears a number appropriate to his position, something that is not always the case during preseason. Just ask some members of the New England Patriots about that.

Wide receivers N’Keal Harry and Gunner Olszewski, and linebacker Jamie Collins Sr. all wore single-digit numbers during the exhibition schedule: Harry and Collins shared the #8 jersey on offense and defense, with Olszewski wearing #9 when he stepped onto the field on offense, special teams and briefly defense in preseason. Moving forward, all three men will now wear jerseys that follow the league’s guidelines:

WR N’Keal Harry: #15

LB Jamie Collins Sr: #58

WR Gunner Olszewski: #80

The three offseason additions are not the only jersey-related news to come out of Foxborough, recently: two players on injury-related reserve lists — Yodny Cajuste (non-football injury list) and Cameron Meredith (physically unable to perform list) — will wear different numbers moving forward, as will the trade acquisitions made by the club over the last few days. All in all, their numbers look as follows:

WR Cameron Meredith: #19

OC Russell Bodine: #66

OT Yodny Cajuste: #63

OG Jermaine Eluemunor: #65

OT Korey Cunningham: #74

While Meredith and Cajuste will not see the field for at least the first six weeks of the regular season due to their injury status, the other three men are all expected to at least be active when the Patriots take on the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday night.