Patriots Hidden Gems: 3 secret superstars on the 2025 roster

Can the new-look New England Patriots become the NFL’s next worst-to-first team? Here are three secret superstars who could help this actually happen.

In every NFL season, there’s at least one former bottom-dweller who rises to the top and gives the other bottom-dwellers hope. 2024’s leader in the “Why Not Us?” sweepstakes were the Washington Commanders, who rose from a 4-13 mark under Ron Rivera to a 12-5 regular-season mark, and a trip to the NFC Championship Game, under new head coach Dan Quinn. Pretty good for a franchise that has had more name changes (two) than playoff wins (one) in the new millennium.

Maybe the 2025 New England Patriots can become that team now. Matching 4-13 records in Bill Belichick’s final season, and Jerod Mayo’s only season as head coach don’t present a ton of encouragement, but no other NFL team did more to ostensibly improve its prospects in the offseason.

Mike Vrabel was a great culture hire as the new head coach, and he obviously understands the Patriot Way as it was once written during his time as linebacker and emergency red zone tight end from 2001 to 2008. General manager Eliot Wolf seems like a more than capable personnel man, and though rookie quarterback Drake Maye didn’t quite hit the heights that Washington’s Jayden Daniels did, Maye made a lot of plays in a broken offense to give hope for the future under offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, back for his third stint with the team in that role.

The real splashes were made for a defense that finished 30th in DVOA last season, as did the offense. The Patriots went all-out with smart money spent on all three levels. There was the four-year, $104 million contract with $63 million guaranteed given to former Philadelphia Eagles pass disruptor Milton Williams, and that deal could completely redefine this defense in several ways.

Then there was the three-year, $33 million deal with $20.6 million in guarantees given to former Raiders linebacker Robert Spillane, one of the more multi-faceted players at his position in the NFL today.

Finally, there was the three-year, $54 million contract with $34.5 million guaranteed for veteran cornerback Carlton Davis III, who — when healthy — is one of the NFL’s best press and man cover cornerbacks, which fits what the Patriots have done historically like the proverbial hand in glove.

The full list of free-agency acquisitions shows an organization prepared to throw the old ways out, and it’s all in with the new.

At the 2025 Scouting Combine, I spoke with Vrabel about the need to combine adherence to the league’s modern schematic changes with a more holistic approach to player development.

“I’m always going to believe that coaching is about connections and making relationships with players and holding them accountable and being honest and giving them things that are going to help them and being creative,” he told me. “I’ll never stray from that. We’re going to continue to always try to find ways to teach them whatever their capacity is, whatever we have to do to get them the knowledge that they need.

“We’re going to try to develop players. We’ve done that in our past, in our history. Focusing on what they can do as opposed to what they can’t. Having an energy every day to come in the building. It’s a long season, and I have to be able to provide that and let that trickle down to our coaches and our players.

“You need guys that can cover, obviously, with the edges and the defense to be able to rush and affect the quarterback. I don’t know if any of that will change. There will be scheme things that change. Some teams believe in RPOs. Some believe in trying to block the extra defender. Some teams believe in reading the end and the quarterback.

“Those are things that we’re always going to adapt and adjust to and add when we feel like it’s important. But the fundamentals and the technique, our effort in which we play with, I think those will withstand the test of time regardless of what scheme you want to run.”

All very smart… one might even say, very Belichick-y. So, if these Patriots are to become NFL’s new surprise team, it will require great performances from everyone on this radically re-tooled roster.

In the continuation of our Hidden Gems series, we look at three secret superstars for these new Patriots — one underrated veteran, one underrated free-agent acquisition, and one underrated draft pick.

Underrated veteran: DL Keion White

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I’ve always been a big fan of multi-gap pass-rushers, so when I first watched Georgie Tech’s Keion White leading up to the 2023 draft, he caught my attention right away. In 2022. White had seven sacks, 41 total pressures, 33 solo tackles, 28 stops, and five tackles for loss, and he did it from everywhere — 2 percent of his snaps came at nose tackle, 16 percent at defensive tackle, and 82 percent on the edge. When you have a guy doing that much damage on the edge at 6-foot-5 and 285 pounds as White did, that’s an interesting prospect to push forward in NFL evaluation.

That’s especially true given the fact that White had just one season to show all those disruptive chops at the major college level. He transferred from Old Dominion in 2021, had just a handful of snaps that season, and finally blew it out in 2022, just in time for the NFL to take notice.

“I was not recruited at all coming out of high school,” he said at a Scouting Combine podium session that was one for the books. “When I got to go to college, I just planned on working in the workforce and being like one of y’all, just a normal person. Coming here and being part of this is just a surreal experience.”

The Patriots selected White with the 47th overall pick in the second round of the 2023 draft, and the rookie had a slow start, with just one sack and 20 total pressures in 321 pass-rushing snaps. But in that lost 2024 season for the team, White found himself. He had six sacks and 45 total pressures, along with 36 solo tackles, 26 stops, seven tackles for loss, and two forced fumbles. White learned to combine power, speed, and pass-rush moves into an intimidating package, and he did it from all over the place once again — 1 percent of his snaps at nose tackle, 30 percent at defensive tackle, and 69 percent out on the edge.

“Just consistency and just having confidence,” White recently said regarding what he’s hoping for in Year 3, and why things are really looking up. “I feel like we have really good guys on the inside. When we get off to the pass or even early-down situations, that changes things that I can do a little bit. I can be a little bit less conservative and be more aggressive.

“And so it changes a lot of things. And then I also have really good coaches, like [outside linebackers] Coach [Mike] Smith, who’s telling me steps, alignment, things like that, that I haven’t traditionally heard. So just that next step of having that coach behind me is really good for me.”

White now has Milton Williams and Christian Barmore as the primary force multipliers inside, as well as free-agent signing Harold Landry as another edge guy, who Vrabel brought over from his Tennessee Titans days. It sets up very well for White to be the do-it-all player who ties the entire line together, which is what he’s wanted to be all along.

Speaking of quarterback disruptors…

Underrated free-agent signing: ED K’Lavon Chaisson

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The Patriots weren’t just writing those big-dollar contracts for defensive players who could have a positive impact — there was also the one-year, $3 million deal with $1.5 million guaranteed given to edge-rusher K’Lavon Chaisson, who was taken with the 20th overall pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2020, but didn’t do much to represent that level of draft capital in his four seasons with the team.

Chaisson landed with the Las Vegas Raiders last season and had a bit of a career rebirth very much under the radar. He had six sacks, 29 total pressures, 20 solo tackles, 20 stops, seven tackles for loss, and a forced fumble in 2024, and given that six of his sacks and 16 of his pressures came in Las Vegas’ final six games, the arrow could be pointing up here.

“Man, just getting the opportunity to produce and play,” Chaisson said in April of his breakout season. “I think that was the biggest thing I was excited about, and looking forward to being in that position. So thankfully, when you have that and being a part of a prestigious league, that’s the NFL, man, you got to be able to show out and take advantage of those opportunities regardless of how the season is going. So, I knew that going into each chance I got, each opportunity I got, I don’t take it for granted.

“I’m super thankful that I got a chance to show that out in Vegas. And now we’re in the perfect spot here in New England.”

Chaisson also credited the help he got in the intricacies of the position from Maxx Crosby; always a great guy to learn from when it comes to terrorizing opposing quarterbacks. Not that Chaisson was bolstered to a ridiculous degree by Crosby’s presence on the opposite edge, by the way — three of his sacks and 16 of his pressures came without Crosby’s participation.

“Just relentless, man,” Chaisson said when asked to describe his play style now. “That’s the ultimate identity that I feel like I want to portray and the Patriots want to portray — relentless, man, nonstop, four quarters. If it takes a fifth quarter, we take it there.

“But it’s something that I embody, just be able to go every chance I get and just be able to go nonstop. As a pass rusher, you have an understanding that as much as you don’t want to settle, it takes one out of 60 plays to be a dominant pass rusher in this league, and you get that going for 17 games, man, that’s a good setting that your team would be in for sure.”

Well, maybe it’s time to take K’Lavon Chaisson seriously. If so, what a bargain he would turn out to be.

Underrated draft pick: WR Kyle Williams

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It was pretty amazing what Drake Maye was able to do in a rookie season where he had very little protection in front of him (Maye was pressured on 37.4% of his dropbacks in 2024), and not a ton of separation among the receivers to whom he threw the ball. Last season, Patriots targets caught just 14 passes of 20 or more air yards on 52 targets for 447 yards and five touchdowns.

To put that into perspective, George Pickens of the Pittsburgh Steelers (and now of the Dallas Cowboys) led the NFL with 17 deep catches on 31 targets for 577 yards, and there were two receivers — Ja’Marr Chase of the Cincinnati Bengals and Rashod Bateman of the Baltimore Ravens — who caught more deep touchdowns (6) than the entire Patriots team did.

The primary hope for better results in 2025 is in the hands of Kyle Williams, the third-round receiver from Miami who beat up opposing defenses to all parts of the field, but was particularly good with the vertical stuff. In 2024, his first season with the Hurricanes after one season at Washington State, and three more before that at UNLV, Williams was Cam Ward’s best deep target. He caught 14 passes of 20 or more air yards on 24 targets for 454 yards and six touchdowns.

Pretty nifty of the Patriots to add a guy who outdid his entire NFL team as a deep receiver, right? And with the 5-foot-11, 190-pound Williams, it’s not just about pure deep speed, though he does have all of that, especially right off the snap of the ball. Williams also knows how to exploit coverage voids and set defenders up; he just does the advanced stuff at a faster rate than a lot of young receivers.

“He’s fast, can play outside and inside, really good with the ball in his hands,” Eliot Wolf said of Williams after the pick was made. “For an undersized guy, he’s really tough. He doesn’t shy away from anything. He can block. Had the opportunity to visit with him on his 30 visit here, and he really has a great personality, and we’re excited about what he’s going to add from that perspective.”

The undersized thing was one reason Williams was still available with the 69th overall pick in this draft — he’s not a contested-catch maven, and he did drop five passes in 2024, mostly with focus issues at the catch point. Still, Williams was able to decimate any kind of defense in 2024, and there was one thing that came up in his introductory Patriots presser.

“Just constant film study,” Williams said specifically of his ability to beat man coverage. “Always perfecting the game, I mean, my craft. II take pride in my craft. I feel like it’s an art. So, you have to really take pride in art, you have to [have] attention to detail, you have to worry about the little things, and I worry about those small little details, and I try to correct them and match them to my game.”

Well, that does show up on tape. Last season against Cover 0, Cover 1, or 2 Man, Williams caught 25 passes on 34 targets for 441 yards, 263 air yards, and five touchdowns.

While he isn’t the most imposing figure when it’s time to Godzilla a cornerback out of the way when the ball’s coming in, good luck keeping up with his first steps if you’re trying to press him off the line of scrimmage, or match him in off coverage.

When asked to describe his playing style, Williams had this to say:

“I would describe it as versatile, game-changing, and electric.”

As they say, it ain’t bragging if you can back it up.