Patriots CB Carlton Davis Out at Least Another Week, Will Miss Colts Joint Practices

Carlton Davis isn’t walking through that door anytime soon — at least not this week. New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel told reporters Friday that the veteran cornerback will remain sidelined with a hamstring injury for at least another week, keeping him out of next week’s joint practices and preseason opener against the Indianapolis Colts.

Davis hasn’t practiced since July 28, when he came up injured during a training camp session in Foxborough. According to NESN, Pro Football Talk’s Josh Alper first reported the extended timeline Friday morning, and Vrabel confirmed the details to the assembled Foxborough media shortly after.

What Vrabel Said

The Patriots coach didn’t sugarcoat the setback, but he also didn’t sound alarmed. Speaking to reporters, Vrabel said Davis isn’t walking into next week’s action against Indianapolis in any form.

“CD will be out probably until the end of next week. I don’t anticipate seeing him with the joint practices with the Colts or available for that game, but staying engaged,” Vrabel said, according to PatsFans.com.

That timeline rules the 29-year-old out of two of the more useful evaluation windows on the summer calendar. Joint practices tend to offer coaches a clearer look at their personnel against unfamiliar opponents than intrasquad reps do, and the preseason opener would have been Davis’s first live snaps since the injury.

Staying Engaged From the Classroom

Vrabel also used the moment to point at something less visible than a snap count: how the staff keeps an injured veteran plugged into the game plan while he can’t practice. Per ClutchPoints‘ report citing Patriots.com, Vrabel described a system where younger assistant coaches take Davis through install scripts away from the field — sometimes called a “mobile classroom” approach — so he isn’t starting from scratch once he’s cleared.

The idea is straightforward. Installing new coverages and calls is one thing on a whiteboard and another thing entirely with pads on. Vrabel’s point was that keeping Davis mentally caught up now should shorten the on-field catch-up later, and it doubles as reps for the position coaches running those sessions.

Davis’s Role in the Secondary

Davis signed with New England as a free agent from Detroit in March 2025 and started all 17 games last season opposite Christian Gonzalez, helping anchor a secondary that carried the Patriots to Super Bowl LX. He finished the regular season with 69 tackles, three tackles for loss and 10 passes defended, then added two interceptions during the team’s postseason run, according to NESN. He played 926 of a possible 1,019 defensive snaps in 2025 — just over 90 percent — per PatsFans.com.

With Davis out, reserves like Charles Woods have been drawing first-team reps opposite Gonzalez during camp, part of a broader competition among the Patriots’ depth cornerbacks while the top of the group waits on Davis’s return.

What It Means Going Forward

Hamstring injuries carry their own logic in training camp. Rushing back too early raises the odds of a re-aggravation that costs far more time than patience would have. Davis is an established starter in his ninth NFL season, not a rookie fighting for a roster spot, so the calculus favors waiting him out rather than pushing for preseason snaps he doesn’t strictly need.

If Davis is cleared to resume practicing around the middle of August, as Yahoo Sports reported, he’d still have several weeks to rebuild conditioning before New England opens its regular season against the Seattle Seahawks. The preseason opener against the Colts will go on without him, but the bigger checkpoint is Week 1 — and right now, the Patriots sound comfortable taking the slow road to get there.