When Dontrelle Inman was with the Toronto Argonauts in 2012, the team had 17 receivers. He was the 17th on the depth chart. After winning the Grey Cup – the Canadian Football League’s Super Bowl – and playing for four NFL franchises, he still has a picture of the 2012 Argonauts depth chart, where he’s placed at the very bottom.

His stint with the New England Patriots in 2019 isn’t quite at that level, but Inman has mostly been running with Jarrett Stidham and the Patriots third-team offense at practice. That’s not a good sign for a veteran, but he doesn’t seem fazed.

“You think LeBron would care if he was running 5-on-5 with the bench? No, he’s going to try to get in there and try to make the bench better,” Inman told Patriots Wire last week after a practice at Gillette Stadium. “The more I can make the team better in any place that I’m at, it helps the team and it helps competition in our room.

He added: “At the end of the day, I’m still learning. It doesn’t matter. Once you get in a game — practice is practice. … No matter where I’m placed — if I’m placed on the first team, third team, fourth team — it really doesn’t matter to me, because I’ve been in that position.”

With the Chargers, Inman faced deep groups of competition at receiver, including Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Tyrell Williams, Travis Benjamin. Inman is no stranger to a situation like the one he’s encountering in New England, where veterans Phillip Dorsett and Maurice Harris and rookies Jakobi Meyers and N’Keal Harry are earning first-team reps with Tom Brady. The position will only get more competitive when receiver Julian Edelman returns from a thumb injury. Demaryius Thomas (Achilles) and Josh Gordon (suspension) may also return for the training camp position battle. The Patriots even added receiver Cameron Meredith this weekend.

Inman seems to be playing catch-up in the Patriots offense, which flunked veteran pass-catchers like Eric Decker, Nate Washington, Reggie Wayne and Chad Ochocinco. Inman has been in Frank Reich’s offense for most of his NFL career. The Patriots offense is quite different.

“It’s extremely hard in this offense, because Tom [Brady] is the best,” Inman said. “Tom has had this offense for 20 years, so if you think about a quarterback that’s learned and changed the offense for 20 years, he has 20 years of a playbook. … That’s 20 years of a playbook. You’re thinking about a 20-page SAT textbook, compared to others that have smaller one.”

At this point in his career, Inman doesn’t try to erase the knowledge he has from previous playbooks. He’s trying to equate his new offense with the ones he has learned in the past by comparing the scheme, the lingo and the play-by-play instructions. He said he’s “connecting the dots.”

Despite participating in organized team activities and minicamp, Inman didn’t catch a pass from Brady in those 11-on-11 drills until Thursday. While he admitted Brady isn’t an easy man to please, he downplayed that first catch.

“Just a quarterback,” Inman said. “I think I’m going to play with three future Hall of Famers (Philip Rivers, Andrew Luck and Brady). … At the end of the day, you just wipe the name off the jerseys. It’s the quarterback throwing you the ball. You get caught up in who it is and you lose sight of what’s important and that’s catching the football.”

But he’s not ignorant to how important it is to please Brady, who Inman compared to Bulls legend Michael Jordan. “He’s the GOAT, too,” Inman said of Brady. “When he steps on the field, he wants everybody to have that level of competitiveness.” Inman is working to understand where Brady wants him at all times, because he knows what’s at stake.

“When you don’t get there, that’s when you’re going to hear from him, from coaches, from teammates,” Inman said.

If Inman can’t figure that out — and quickly — he may find that his reception from Brady last week was the only time he and “the GOAT” connect. His chances of making the roster are already dwindling, so he’ll have to reverse course with four preseason games on the horizon.

The receiver position seems to be wide open in New England.