Sunday Patriots Notes: League-leading resources invite aggressive offseason approach

Notes and thoughts on the Patriots’ offseason capital, uniform changes, the All-Bill Belichick team, and more.

The NFL season is officially in the books, and all 32 teams are now on to 2025. The New England Patriots have been in this position for some time now, entering the offseason back in January after an underwhelming 4-13 campaign.

With the fundamental changes over — i.e. hiring a new-look coaching staff — the team is now full steam ahead toward rebuilding the roster. With that said, welcome to this week’s edition of our Sunday Patriots Notes.

League-leading resources invite aggressive offseason approach

Last January, Jerod Mayo made headlines when he suggested the Patriots would go out and be “ready to burn some cash” in the offseason. The team’s then-head coach later went back those remarks, and New England eventually invested most of its financial resources in re-signing its own players in free agency.

Fast forward to 2025, and Mayo’s words could finally turn into reality. While he himself is no longer part of the organization — Mayo was fired after the season and replaced with Mike Vrabel — the Patriots are in a position to make major swings over the coming weeks.

In fact, no other team in the league is as well-prepared from both a salary cap and draft capital perspective to make waves.

Not only are the Patriots the current owners of the fourth most valuable draft portfolio — one that includes four selections in the top 100 picks — they also lead the league in salary cap space by a wide margin: at the moment, cap expert Miguel Benzan projects them at $128.69 million under a $275 million cap.

Given that there are no must-re-signees on their current list of free agents, the Patriots can be quite aggressive in their pursuit of talent. Players at positions of need such as WR Tee Higgins, OT Ronnie Stanley, DT Milton Williams, ED Chase Young or LB Zack Baun all could be on their radar as a consequence — as could highly-rated draft prospects to complement the free agency investments.

Who will be brought in remains to be seen, but the expectation is that the Patriots will be quite active.

“I would anticipate that they are very active,” NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero said earlier this month. “I know that Eliot Wolf was working it on every receiver. It didn’t work out last year, but whether it was Calvin Ridley or Brandon Aiyuk or other guys who came up, they were in on everything.”

Last year, the Patriots found themselves as a tough sell; they were coming off a 4-13 season and had just gone their separate ways with long-time coach Bill Belichick and promoted the inexperienced Mayo as his successor. This year, however, they find themselves in a different spot: not only is Mike Vrabel an established head coach, Drake Maye also provides them some serious potential at quarterback.

The Vrabel-Mayo duo also is part of what the Patriots can offer this year beyond salary cap space and draft capital. As a whole, they are a much more attractive team now when it comes to acquiring players in free agency or through the trade market.

All things considered, they might be among the most attractive destinations in football despite their recent struggles putting a competitive product onto the field.

Uniform change a foregone conclusion

With Mike Vrabel and company on board, the Patriots will look dramatically different off the field in 2025. It appears likely that they will look different on it as well, in quite a literal sense: a uniform change this offseason appears to be a foregone conclusion.

For starters, NFL teams are allowed to change their looks only once every five years. The Patriots introduced their current all-navy home look for the 2020 season, meaning that they are now eligible for a change (one that already would have gotten approved by the league at this point in time).

In addition, the Patriots appeared to phase out their all-navy outfit during the 2024 season. A closer look at the outfits they wore last year shows this:

• Navy-silver (6): Weeks 2, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18
• White-navy (4): Weeks 1, 3, 4, 9
• White-silver (3): Weeks 7, 10, 16
• Red throwback (2): Weeks 6, 13
• All-navy (2): Weeks 5, 8

As can be seen, the nominal home look was worn just twice all year and not once over the second half of the season.

The last time the Patriots changed their uniform look was announced in April 2020. The team might follow a similar timeline this year, in order to have the new jersey available to be handed out to their first-round pick in the draft.

Alex Austin has clear plans for 2025

Following a series of transactions earlier this week, the Patriots are left with 14 players headed for free agency. Among them is cornerback Alex Austin, who is set to become an exclusive rights free agent in March.

As a result, the Patriots are the only team allowed to tender him before the start of the new league year. And if the 23-year-old is to be believed, that is the outcome he wants:

The exclusive rights tender for Austin would be worth $1.03 million. The expectation is that the team will indeed use it to keep him around for the 2025 season.

David Andrews ‘excited’ about Josh McDaniels’ return

New Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel brought in a familiar face to lead his offense in 2025. Josh McDaniels, who previously served that role in two separate and highly successful stints, is back in New England as its offensive coordinator.

For center and long-time team captain David Andrews, McDaniels’ return is a welcome one.

“Excited to have Josh back,” he told WBZ-TV. “Obviously have a great relationship with him. Had a lot of success with him. Really believe in a lot of stuff he does. It was definitely a big thing coming back and trying to go play one more year. Whatever happens — super excited. Hopefully we can build something and build forward.”

Marcus Jones a player to watch in 2025

Josh McDaniels’ return is only one piece of the Patriots’ offensive puzzle for the new season. Another will be the talent he gets to work with — a group that might include hyper-versatile Marcus Jones yet again.

While primarily a cornerback, Jones has also seen offensive snaps in each of his first three years as a Patriot. The former third-round draft pick primarily served as a decoy under McDaniels’ predecessor, Alex Van Pelt in 2024, but he might be a player to watch moving forward: McDaniels has never been afraid of using odd formations and trickery, and the All-Pro punt returner Jones seems like a good fit for such an approach to calling offense.

Travis Hunter hinting at NFL role?

Speaking of versatile players, Colorado’s Travis Hunter stands out among the 2025 draft prospects in that regard. Not only is he one of the best cornerback prospects of the last decade, he also has proven himself a productive player at the wide receiver position.

How Hunter — a possible target for the Patriots at No. 4 overall — will be used remains to be seen. His designation for the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis set to start later this month might give us a clue, though: the 21-year-old will work out with the defensive backs rather than the receivers.

Of course, Alex Barth of 98.5 The Sports Hub, has a different theory:

Just a thought on Travis Hunter being listed as a DB for the Combine, and what it might mean for his potential outlook as a WR…

If he does want to work out at both positions, I assume he’s still not going to do two media sessions, two medical exams, etc. It’s just going to be the on-field stuff.

Given the way the schedule is laid out, logistically him going as a DB makes much more sense. He can do all of that, then the DB workout the next day, then the WR workout the day after that. If [h]e were to go as a wide receiver, he’d have to do some of that stuff the same day as a workout.

Just a guess, but it’s possible that decision is simply to make things as easy as possible logistically.

Time will tell what Hunter’s Combine will actually look like. He will remain a player to keep a close eye on, though.

A good year for needing defensive tackles

The Patriots are in need of upgrades all across the board, with wide receiver, offensive tackle and defensive edge as the most prominent. However, they also would benefit from adding some more talent along their interior defensive line.

They might go after a DT in free agency, but the draft also offers some serious potential for investment. Draft expert E.J. Snyder called it “an absolute cheat-code of a position group” with a high level of diversity in terms of body types, play style and positional flexibility.

That is good news for a New England team facing some uncertainty up front.

Two of the team’s top interior linemen — Deatrich Wise Jr. and Daniel Ekuale — are headed for free agency, with Christian Barmore’s outlook also unclear following his 2024 blood clots diagnosis. That leaves Davon Godchaux and Keion White as well as fringe roster players Jeremiah Pharms Jr., Jaquelin Roy, Eric Johnson and Marcus Harris as the current depth chart.

Two Patriots make the All-Bill Belichick team

Patriots head coach-turned-media pundit-turned North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick took to Instagram — yes, indeed — this week to publish an All-Belichick team for the 2024 NFL season. It features three of his former players, including current New England cornerback Christian Gonzalez and special teamer Brenden Schooler.

Belichick thinking highly of Gonzalez and Schooler is no surprise. Not only were they named All-Pros this season, he also was the one to add them to the Patriots in 2023 and 2022, respectively.

In addition to the two, Belichick also named Joe Thuney to his all-star team. Thuney arrived in New England as a third-round draft pick in 2016, and won two Super Bowls before leaving for the Kansas City Chiefs ahead of the 2021 season.

Patriots earn solid grades for tackling prowess

Speaking of Bill Belichick, one of the hallmarks of his Patriots teams was a focus on fundamentals. In some respects, this seemed to carry over to the post-Belichick era: according to NFL Next Gen Stats, the Patriots — who struggled with consistency across their team in 2024 — were an above-average tackling team last year.

They were ranked 13th in a recent league-wide comparison:

Not a whole lot went right for the Patriots in Jerod Mayo’s lone season as head coach, but their tackling — which had been consistently elite under Bill Belichick — remained solid in 2024, as they finished with the 12th-highest efficiency rate (87.6%) and 10th-fewest missed tackle yards allowed (811). Veteran run-stopper Davon Godchaux converted 94.4% of his tackle attempts, second-highest among DTs (minimum of 50 opportunities), while sophomore standout Keion White also finished among the top 10 defensive linemen with a 91.8% efficiency mark. New head coach Mike Vrabel and defensive coordinator Terrell Williams could be poised to keep some positive momentum going; when both coaches were in Tennessee together (2018-2023), the Titans finished in the top half of the league in tackling efficiency in every season.

Setting up the week ahead

Starting on Tuesday and all the way through 4:00 p.m. ET on March 4, teams are allowed to designate franchise or transition players and keep them from entering free agency. The Patriots could, in theory, use the tag as well but they will not: as previously noted, a lack of star power is the defining feature of New England’s free agency class this year.

A date that will have more importance for the team this year is Saturday, Feb. 22. The HBCU Bowl will take place at Yulman Stadium in New Orleans that day — kickoff is set for 4 p.m. ET — and give the Patriots a chance to see some under-the-radar draft prospects in person.