{"id":38904,"date":"2018-03-16T19:12:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T23:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnfl.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=38904"},"modified":"2018-03-16T19:12:36","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T23:12:36","slug":"jeremy-hill-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2018\/03\/16\/jeremy-hill-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremy Hill Signs With the New England Patriots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After losing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/L\/LewiDi00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Dion Lewis<\/strong><\/a> to the Tennessee Titans in free agency, the New England Patriots made a move to shore up the running position by signing former Cincinnati Bengals tailback <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/H\/HillJe01.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Jeremy Hill<\/strong><\/a>. The news was first reported by ESPN&#8217;s Field Yates. Terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Source: the Patriots are signing former Bengals RB Jeremy Hill.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Field Yates (@FieldYates) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FieldYates\/status\/974782186476982272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 16, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1>Report: New England Patriots Add Jeremy Hill<\/h1>\n<p>Up to this point, Hill\u2019s career has been somewhat of a disappointment. He was shot out of a cannon his rookie year, rushing for 1,124 yards and nine touchdowns. As a member of an impressive 2014 LSU draft class that included Pro Bowl wide receivers<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/L\/LandJa00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jarvis Landry<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/B\/BeckOd00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Odell Beckham<\/a><\/strong> Jr., Hill made an early impact on an already impressive <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/bengals\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> team. The potential was obvious, but never quite reached.<\/p>\n<p>As part of a running back by committee backfield in Cincinnati, Hill split carries with the versatile <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/B\/BernGi00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Giovani Bernard<\/a><\/strong>. And although Hill received the lion\u2019s share of the carries, Bernard was clearly the better back.<\/p>\n<h3>A Decline in Production<\/h3>\n<p>Hill\u2019s second and third seasons were productive but nowhere near the numbers of his rookie campaign. In the 2015 and 2016 seasons, Hill carried the ball 445 times for 1,633 yards and 20 touchdowns. Hill\u2019s value in short yardage situations and near the goal line was evident; his issues were between the 20-yard lines.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, the Bengals drafted <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/MixoJo00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Mixon<\/a><\/strong> out of Oklahoma\u2014arguably, the most talented back in the draft\u2014to add some spark to their offense. Mixon is a big, athletic back who catches balls like a wide receiver. He has the skill set of Bernard in a bigger frame and is everything Hill was supposed to be.<\/p>\n<h3>The Begining of the End<\/h3>\n<p>The drafting of Mixon was the beginning of the end for Hill in Cincinnati. Hill\u2019s season was cut short after just seven games in 2017 due to injury. Those last few games would end up being his last in a Bengals uniform.<\/p>\n<p>Even before the injury, it was clear that Cincinnati had moved on from Hill. He had carried the ball just 37 times for 116 yards and was losing time and carries to both Mixon and Bernard.<\/p>\n<p>History has shown that Hill can be productive without the need for a full workload. He is a powerful runner with an acumen for work near the goal line. And at 25 years old, there is still plenty of tread left on his tires.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"GBBAu4RqSS9_1aLIG_zLgw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/839960570\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'GBBAu4RqSS9_1aLIG_zLgw',sig:'2EY1TOIQbNxUzUSWe5QRQmzCATjlgwD3hyWzwFKnkSQ=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'839960570',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jeremy Hill made 43 regular season starts for the Cincinnati Bengals during his four years with the team. His 29 career rushing touchdowns rank sixth in franchise history. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2170,"featured_media":38952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,7,5],"tags":[330,61,735,38,40,1608],"class_list":["post-38904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-bengals","category-patriots","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-football","tag-jeremy-hill","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-free-agency"],"modified_by":"David McCaffery","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}