Dion Lewis had spent his previous four months without a team before he arrived in Foxborough on New Year’s Eve.

It was then that the New England Patriots signed the former Pittsburgh Panthers standout to a reserve-futures contract, one that would keep him off the roster through the playoffs, but would bring him in for the offseason workout program and training camp.

The move has proved to be a low-risk, high-reward one for the Patriots since then.

Lewis has kept a locker inside Gillette Stadium well after the conclusion of camp, and the results have seen the 5-foot-7, 195-pound running back rank fourth in the league with 258 yards from scrimmage through two regular-season games.

The 2011 Philadelphia Eagles fifth-round pick hadn’t played in one since December of 2012.

Two years passed. Lewis had been a member of the Cleveland Browns and Indianapolis Colts, and had battled back from a fractured fibula and ligament damage. But the 24-year-old, who once broke the Big East freshman rushing record previously set by Tony Dorsett, has uncovered a landing spot on his once-promising road.

Only the Patriots hardly uncovered him.

“I mean, look, it wasn’t like Dion Lewis was a secret. We all saw him at Pittsburgh,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said Monday on WEEI's Dale & Holley. “He was scouted by us and by every other team.”

The Patriots did, however, have another set of eyes on the elusive ball-carrier.

Assistant to the coaching staff Michael Lombardi was familiar with Lewis from his time as the Browns’ general manager.

“I think the difference was that Mike spent some time with him when he was in Cleveland, and that was his evaluation and his opportunity to see the player was just better than mine or anybody else’s because we hadn’t seen him on an NFL roster doing things that NFL teams do very much,” Belichick said. “He saw more of it.”

What Lombardi saw was enough to warrant Lewis a contract.

“Again, at that point, as a reserve-futures signing, to compete for the 2015 season, it was really, pretty much a no brainer,” Belichick said. “He was a good player, a player that we liked coming out of college, a player that we felt like if he was healthy, which he wasn’t last year, that he would have an opportunity to compete for a spot on our team. So, that was really about the way it worked out.”

It has worked out thus far. Lewis has played the seventh-most snaps on New England’s offensive side of the ball through two weeks. He’s surpassed his previous career-bests in both rushing and receiving in the process.

He and defensive end Rufus Johnson now stand as the last remaining reserve-futures additions outside of the 2014 practice squad.

“It wasn’t really a big project, it was just trying to build your roster. But each one of those players that you sign, as you know, then that’s basically, probably one less player you would get after the draft in the college free-agent pool and so forth,” Belichick noted. “You have so many roster spots, you decide to use them on whoever you decide to use them on. But, in Dion’s case, we felt like he would be a good fit in our offense for the reasons that we’re seeing now.”

Lewis has averaged five yards per carry and 15 yards per catch for the Patriots, and he has also served as the primary kick returner. He’s been a multipurpose tool suited for a multipurpose team.

“He has versatility to run the ball, to catch it, he also returns kickoffs,” Belichick continued. “He can do some different things, and he’s done them pretty productively for us this year.”

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