Sunday Patriots Notes: Will Campbell has found his mentor

Notes and thoughts on Will Campbell’s mentor, the Patriots’ summer break, a potential trade candidate, and more.

On April 7, the New England Patriots began their offseason workout program. Two months later, they held the final session — a two-hour practice inside the WIN Waste Innovations Field House — to wrap things up. Naturally, most of our focus this week was on the two practices that you can recap here (Monday) and here (Tuesday).

For everything else, let’s clean out the notebook. Welcome to the latest edition of our Sunday Patriots Notes.

Will Campbell has found his mentor

One of the big reasons why the Patriots selected Will Campbell in the first round of the NFL Draft in April was his leadership ability. He was a team captain at LSU and was also awarded the prestigious No. 7 jersey, which he wore as a patch.

Now in New England, though, Campbell is still in the early stages of his pro career and has yet to find his voice in the room. As a consequence, he is looking for guidance from others.

One prominent mentor for him, alongside veterans Mike Onwenu and Garrett Bradbury, has been fellow offensive tackle Morgan Moses.

“He’s been great. Playbook, scheme things, questions about his past play, and just really getting to know him off the field, too,” Campbell said about the 34-year-old. “He’s just giving me bits and pieces in really all aspects.”

Moses joined the Patriots on a three-year free agency deal in March, and will start at right tackle this season. Besides filling that role, he also was added to help revamp the offense from a leadership perspective (just like Campbell is expected to do eventually):

At this early stage in the process, the rookie left tackle is already taking advantage of the 11-year veteran’s presence in the room.

“Whenever you’re a rookie at any position you look for a guy that you know can come in and has done it the right way since he’s been in the league, proven himself, and that is a great person that you can latch on to,” Campbell said of Moses. “He’s just been great to me — not only me, but all the guys in the room.”

Moses first entered the NFL as a second-round draft pick by the now-Washington Commanders in 2014. He later also spent time with the Baltimore Ravens and New York Jets, starting a total of 163 games along the way.

Coming weeks will be crucial for the Patriots

The Patriots’ players and coaches will not be back on the practice fields until the first session of training camp on July 23. However, inactivity is not an option for either group over the next five weeks — a message head coach Mike Vrabel made sure to let his team known this week.

“I don’t think it’s a downtime. It’s time away from the facility. I think it’s important,” Vrabel explained during one of his media sessions.

Players are free to approach the summer break as they see fit (although there might be some restraints on the activities they are contractually allowed to do), meaning there will be all sorts of different ways the downtime is spent. Besides tending to personal matters, those might include a mix of rehabilitation work, playbook study, and individual training and workouts, among other things.

The Patriots under their first-year head coach and new schemes on both offense and defense will rely on the players as well as the coaches not taking the foot off the gas too much. Vrabel made that clear on Tuesday.

“It’s probably the five most important weeks of the offseason as far as I’m concerned, just in my history as a player and a coach,” he said. “It’s critical that they come back in shape, that they’re ready to go for training camp, that we’re prepared as coaches with the schedule, the installation and what we’re doing. The players have to hold up their end of the bargain to prepare for training camp.”

Harold Landry explains a Mike Vrabel team

Familiarity was one of the big themes of the Patriots’ offseason personnel acquisition, and the team’s first free agency pickup is a perfect example of that: Harold Landry spent the first six years of his NFL career with the Tennessee Titans under Mike Vrabel.

As a consequence, he knows what the head coach is looking for in his players and his team — he knows what a Mike Vrabel team is.

“A team that plays super hard for each other,” Landry explained. “A team that cares about each other. And a team that’s going to go out there and put their teammate ahead of themselves.”

Terrell Williams nearing a return

Patriots defensive coordinator Terrell Williams has been away from the team for several weeks following a medical scare earlier this offseason. While there are no concrete updates on his status or the nature of that scare in the first place, there is optimism about the 50-year-old with training camp getting closer.

“Doing well,” Mike Vrabel said about him. “He’ll be here soon and excited about that. I think everybody’s looking forward to that.”

A first-time coordinator, Williams was hired by Vrabel earlier this offseason after the two already spent seven years in Tennessee together. During his absence, inside linebackers coach Zak Kuhr has taken over as interim DC, even though Williams himself remained in constant contact with the team while away in his hometown of Detroit.

Layden Robinson, trade candidate?

Even though the Patriots saw one left guard candidate depart this week — veteran Wes Schweitzer was moved to the reserve/retired list — it seems unlikely that sophomore Layden Robinson will help fill the void. The 2024 fourth-round draft pick, who started five games at left guard and six at right guard as a rookie, was buried on the depth chart throughout.

While there is always a chance the naturally-gifted run blocker will reemerge when the pads come on in training camp, at the moment he very much seems to be on the outside looking in behind Cole Strange, Jared Wilson, Tyrese Robinson and even tackle/guard hybrid Caedan Wallace. As a consequence, the Patriots might be looking into getting other value out of the 24-year-old: he looks like a potential trade candidate.

Coming off an underwhelming 4-13 season and having one of the worst overall rosters in the league, New England does not have a lot of players other teams will be interested in bringing aboard. Robinson might be an exception, though, given that he is still young, will be on a rookie contract through 2027, and has had encouraging moments in his 11 career starts.

Based on his spring usage, the Patriots do not seem convinced in his outlook based on his spring usage. However, it only takes one other team to do so for a trade to become a possibility.

Drake Maye welcoming the challenge

With Carlton Davis added to the mix, the Patriots could have one of the top outside cornerback tandems in the NFL in 2025. Davis, after all, is joining second-team All-Pro Christian Gonzalez in the New England secondary — a potentially challenging combo for opposing quarterbacks.

That challenge is one Drake Maye is actively looking forward to each day.

“I tell Gonzo every day, ‘I’m going to test them,’” Maye said this week. “I’m not going to not throw at him or CD, two of the best corners and one of the best duos in the league. What an opportunity for us to go out there every day and throw against those guys.”

For Maye, this is a mutually beneficial approach.

“There are going to be guys and quarterbacks in this league with big-time receivers that are going to go at Gonzo, go at CD,” Maye said. “If we were playing our defense, I get those guys excited in the receiver room to play such a good cornerback duo who gets a lot of hype, and it’s well-deserved. I’m picking myself for those guys on our side, but playing someone like that, you want to prove them wrong and ‘Hey, this guy’s making a bunch of money. Let’s go out there and show them what we can do.’

“That’s our mindset if we’re playing somebody like our duo. Just giving them work, I think that’s what’s great. Gonzo wants work. Try to throw them back-shoulder if you’re staying on top, or try to throw them on a slant when you’re sitting inside, or throw them on an in-cut when you’re in the back end zone. I think stuff like that, it gives them good work, and I think when the season comes, it’s going to help out.”

Gonzalez will be the Patriots’ No. 1 cornerback this season due to his impressive abilities as a man-to-man defender. A true shutdown CB in the making, he is one of the best young players his position has to offer across the NFL.

Davis, on the other hand, is a veteran of seven seasons who came to Foxborough with 97 career games under his belt. He was not available for all of the offseason program, but when on the field slotted right into the starting role opposite Gonzalez.

Dirt-cheap Drake

Speaking of Drake Maye, the young QB will be one of the cheapest starting quarterbacks in the NFL in 2025. Obviously, that is nothing new given that he is only in his second season.

What is new is that Maye is the second-cheapest starter in the league relative to his team’s adjusted salary cap number. With Pittsburgh signing veteran Aaron Rodgers as its QB1, only Minnesota’s J.J. McCarthy remains below Maye on that list.

According to salary cap expert Miguel Benzan, McCarthy takes up 1.75 percent of the Vikings’ cap. Maye, for comparison, stands at 2.58 percent of New England’s $322.6 million adjusted cap figure.

On the other end of the spectrum are Matthew Stafford (Los Angeles Rams), Dak Prescott (Dallas Cowboys) and Joe Burrow (Cincinnati Bengals), who all take up 16-plus percent of their respective teams’ adjusted cap.

Silver pants back on the menu

Besides the introduction of a yet-to-be-unveiled NFL Rivalry jersey as an alternate this fall, the Patriots did not make any official uniform changes this year. However, the signs continue to point toward the old silver pants having replaced the all-navy look as the primary outfit for 2025.

Look no further than the Patriots’ team head shots from earlier this week.

The Patriots wore their navy-silver combo six times during the 2024 season, with the silver pants additionally appearing in three games combined with the white road jersey. For comparison, the all-navy look introduced as the primary in 2020 saw action just twice all year.

Patriots share their summer plans

With the Patriots set to spend the next five weeks away from the Gillette Stadium facility, they can finally take some time off from football. However, that time will be relatively short for a majority of the team.

“I’m getting married in two weeks,” said quarterback Drake Maye about his summer plans before quickly shifting back into football mode: “Other than that, just trying to get ready for the season.”

Safety Jaylinn Hawkins, who recently tied the knot, is in a similar position.

“Wednesday, I’m going for a few days on my honeymoon with my wife,” he said earlier in the week. “Go down to Southern France with her for a couple of days, and then come back and train and get ready for camp.”

Maye and Hawkins are both veteran players, meaning that they were permitted to leave town right after the final spring session on Wednesday and do not have to return until the eve of training camp. Rookie players such as first-round draft pick Will Campbell, meanwhile, follow a slightly different timeline and more condensed break.

“Rookies, we’re still going to be here and be working. We don’t really go home until a couple of weeks,” Campbell said before laying out his own summer goals. “Just really getting better at everything. Coming back and being a better player than I am today is the biggest thing that I can do.”

As far as head coach Mike Vrabel is concerned, his plans also do not include a full break from football — he will be living the message he was preaching.

“Probably do a little bit of football, do a little bit of golf, do a little bit of relaxing.”

Setting up the week ahead

With the Patriots’ offseason program in the books, this week will be quiet for the Patriots. The rookies will still get some work in, though, and there might be news about free agency workouts and staff hires. So, make sure to still stay tuned.