Patriots rookies pranked with fake $55,000 check at dinner

Story by

Story by
Patriots rookies pranked with fake $55,000 check at dinner

Mark Daniels · MassLive

Thu, Jan 29, 2026 ·

4 min read

About Our Ads

FOXBOROUGH – The entire Patriots secondary was sitting around an elongated table inside Boston’s Cactus Club when the waitress brought them the check. Rookie Kobee Minor took one look at the bill, and his stomach dropped.

It read, subtotal $52,000 with a local tax of $390 and a state tax of $3,250 for a total due of $55,640. That amount was to be split by Minor and fellow Patriots rookie Craig Woodson .

A rookie dinner is a tradition in the NFL where a group of players go out and hand the final bill to their first-year players. Sometimes, it gets lavish, and veterans take advantage of the night with expensive drinks and entrees.

As teammates started to laugh, Woodson figured it out.

“That was fake,” the rookie safety said. “That was fake.”

On Tuesday night, the Patriots ’ secondary held their rookie dinner with a well-played prank by veteran Jaylinn Hawkins . The night allowed players to bond and blow off steam before they started prepping for Super Bowl 60 against the Seattle Seahawks .

“It was a rookie dinner. But I was a fake check, it wasn’t even real,” Minor said. “I thought it was. When they first brought it out, my heart dropped a little bit. It was good.”

Minor originally put a video up of the night on his Instagram account. Once people saw that he’d have to pay a portion of the $50,000 bill, his phone started buzzing – and buzzing. It got so much attention, he deleted the story from his account.

The entire Patriots cornerback and safety depth chart was there at the restaurant in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. Dell Pettus said the fake check was a good look at their relationship.

“We’re a tight-knit group. We like to joke around and mess with each other,” Pettus said. “We’re a very close group. It was a fun night. We got to sit there and kind of take a night just to relax and enjoy one another outside of the building. We get together enough, but not too much.

“Just having that night for everybody to enjoy a nice meal together, and kind of reflect upon the season, where we’re at, where we’re headed to, the season is about to wrap up. So it was like having one last night where we know everyone is going to be in the same room again. It was a fun night. We were very blessed to experience and share with each other.”

Most NFL players have been through a rookie dinner before. There are tales of veterans ordering entrees to go and the most expensive bottles of alcohol or shots on the menu.

Hawkins went through that during his rookie season and wishes someone pranked him with the check.

“You have to do it. It’s a traditional thing you have to follow, and we wanted to follow that tradition,” Hawkins said. “I didn’t get tricked. I just had to come up (with it) out of my pocket. I didn’t get tricked, it was for real.”

Before the dinner, Hawkins set the plan in motion. After the players were done eating, he called over the waitress and talked to her without the rookies knowing what was going on..

“I was like, ‘Can you give them a fake bill? Make it look a little bit higher than what it is.’ Then they did that,” Hawkins said. “It was a good time. We were all bonding, chilling, having a good time together. That’s the best thing you can do outside the facility.”

Woodson and Minor ended up picking up the check. They won’t say how much it cost them, but it wasn’t close to $50,000.

“They really pranked us,” Minor said. “We had a good time.”

More Patriots Content