Sunday Patriots Notes: Breakout candidates aplenty on young roster

The New England Patriots are scattered all over the country at the moment, but the summer break is slowly but surely nearing its end: in 10 days, the first group of players will report to training camp.

For the time being, however, things are still relatively quiet. As a consequence, our weekly wrap-up of stories not covered elsewhere on Pats Pulpit is relatively short — i.e. roughly 2,000 words — once again. That will of course change in due time, but for now, here is another somewhat truncated version of our Sunday Patriots Notes.

Breakout candidates aplenty

Coming off a Super Bowl appearance and being led by an MVP-level quarterback entering just his third year in the league, the Patriots are on a definitive upward trajectory. That is true for the team as a whole, but also for its individual players — some of whom looking like potential breakout candidates.

One of the is new starting center Jared Wilson, who actually was named as such by a recent analysis by ESPN:

Wilson already did one of the harder things a rookie can do: win a starting job, out of position, despite not being a first-round pick. The third-rounder was a college center who kicked over to left guard and kept his head above water. But his best NFL position was always center, and the job is now his after the Garrett Bradbury trade this offseason.

Wilson has the nice combination of quickness, balance and play speed that modern centers need to become featured parts of the running game. Facing fewer one-on-one situations against power rushers than last season will benefit him greatly. So long as he can handle the pre-snap side of the job, he should be an above-average starting center by this time next year.

Coming off a challenging rookie season spent, as mentioned, out of position, Wilson is a definitive player to watch this year. He did spend all of the offseason as the starting center in front of Drake Maye, a reflection of the Patriots’ commitment to him.

Wilson, however, is not the only player worthy of a “breakout” level. Among his fellow sophomores are offensive tackle Will Campbell, whose talent was on display repeatedly in 2025 but whose rookie campaign was ultimately disrupted by a knee injury, as well as big-play running back TreVeyon Henderson.

The name that stands out the most, however, might be Craig Woodson. After already leading the team in defensive snaps last year, the fourth-round draft pick is slated to make a Year 2 jump in a secondary consisting of fellow starters Christian Gonzalez, Carlton Davis, Marcus Jones and veteran free agency pickup Kevin Byard. Woodson taking a step up from being a promising but somewhat inconsistent player might do wonders for him and the entire new England pass defense.

Among the more experienced players who could break out are wide receiver Romeo Doubs, who always was a good player in Green Bay but never managed to put up impressive numbers, or Alijah Vera-Tucker, whose first-round talent was undone by injuries with the Jets; if he can stay healthy for once, he very well could play up to his capabilities in the most favorable offensive setup of his career.

Mac Jones reflects on Patriots tenure

Former Patriots starting quarterback and current 49ers backup Mac Jones made an appearance on the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast this week, and among the topics discussed was his tenure in New England. The 2021 first-round draft pick had led the club to the playoffs in his first season, playing some encouraging football under then-offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. However, McDaniels’ departure the following offseason paired with the Patriots’ inability to provide consistent coaching around him, forced Jones to stall and eventually get traded after the 2023 season.

During the two-hour conversation, Jones touched on some of the good and bad of his Patriots tenure.

On getting drafted by the Patriots: “When I got picked there, there was some added pressure, for sure. I was so young. I feel like I was still maturing and still needed time. It was good for me to go there, and I love Mr. Kraft and the organization. The start of it was really good. Our first year was good, Josh McDaniels was awesome. We went to playoffs but there was that — playoffs isn’t good enough. We were like, ‘let’s build this in Year 2’ and that’s when it went crazy downhill.”

On replacing Tom Brady: “The good news is I replaced Cam Newton. I’m just kidding. … Replacing Tom was definitely a narrative. I try not to pay attention to it, I just try to play my game. I’m not Tom Brady. I never will be. He’s the best player to ever play. It was tough. You’re always going to have the expectation.”

On Cam Newton: “Cam was so awesome. I played with a lot of joy and he plays with a lot of joy. He was a great mentor. We were together quickly but he was awesome. I have nothing bad to say about him. He was the man. Funny and worked his butt off. I would get there at like 5 a.m. and he’s there at 4:30 fully sweating.”

On Josh McDaniels departure: “Josh McDaniels ended up leaving, and that was kind of like Step 1. … That really affected me because I felt like if I could just build on the year before it would have really helped me and everybody on the team. That happened and some other stuff happened, like we didn’t know who we were going to hire. … Obviously, Bill [Belichick] interviewed people, but I just feel like we didn’t click early in OTAs. You could kind of see it trending. But I was just a second-year player, so I really didn’t say or do much.”

On 2022 offense: “At first, Bill was going to call the plays. I was like, ‘Alright, this is kind of fun, let’s see how this goes.’ … We got close to the season and it ended up Matty P and Joe Judge, they were switching off. In preseason, they were doing some, and I think Bill was in there a little bit, like ‘Hey, call this play here.’ So, they were experimenting. So, Matty P ended up calling them, but we changed our entire offense the week before the season back to what we did my first year. But we weren’t practicing that, so it was really hard for everybody. We had veteran guys like Hunter Henry or Jakobi Meyers, so we were good, but I didn’t feel great about it going in and it was tough for me. … We actually kind of started at least figuring it out. We were really only a couple of plays away from making it to the playoffs, which is crazy. But it was just a weird year. It didn’t feel clean, crisp.”

On 2022 fallout: “Looking back at it, I should have been more vocal about it. But I was a second-year player and for me it was a weird spot. … It really affected my career. I wasn’t playing my best football, but I don’t know if playing my best football was even in the cards.”

On QB controversy with Bailey Zappe: “I got hurt that second year. We were slinging the ball around and I got hurt. That messed everything up and there were some weird dynamics there. It was really weird. The communication wasn’t great. … Honestly, it was weird for both of us. We were both young and it was really the second year, too, when we had like Matty P and stuff. He went in there and played really well, which was awesome. But, it was kind of weird because it was my team. I felt like that. I felt like I deserved that shot.”

On communication with Bill Belichick: “The first year was great. We would eat breakfast some times together, and like hanging out and get to know each other. I don’t know what happened. It just kind of like switched a little bit.”

Grass is gone

As part of the FIFA World Cup arriving at Gillette Stadium, the Patriots’ home arena had to change its playing surface. The turf field had to be torn out and replaced with natural grass for the biggest soccer tournament on the planet. With seven games in the books and no more contests scheduled at the stadium, however, that grass field has been removed again.

The grass being gone means New England returning to its usual turf surface. That move had always been planned, even though the NFL Players Association and several Patriots players themselves had voiced support for playing on grass in the past.

“I feel like your cleats come in and out better. I feel like you can cut more or cut better,” defensive tackle Milton Williams said about playing on grass during the Patriots’ offseason workout program.

Longtime team photographer leaving

The Patriots’ longest-tenured employee, director of scouting administration Nancy Meier, announced her retirement after 52 years earlier this year. Last week, another veteran member of the organization made his decision to leave the organization public: team photographer David Silverman, who spent 34 years with the Patriots, has decided to move on.

“I would like to share with everyone that I have made the choice not to return to the Patriots this season after a good 34-year run,” Silverman wrote in a statement on social media. “Being part of the Patriots’ NFL history helped me to reach my dreams. Thank you to the Krafts for trusting me with capturing their history.”

Silverman later reiterated that he would not be retiring but instead “looking for the next big shoot.”

No. 1 at No. 80

The NFL’s annual offseason list of its Top 100 Players has started, and at No. 80 the first member of the Patriots made his appearance: A.J. Brown, whose ranking is entirely based on his 2025 season with the Eagles rather than his outlook in New England.

Nonetheless, there were some nice words spoken about the veteran wide receiver.

“Everything you want in a receiver,” said now-former teammate Cooper DeJean. “Size, speed, the way he catches the ball, the way he’s able to get open. His ability to run the quick routes or run deep, or catch the ball through traffic. There are not too many like him.”

Conflict of interest?

Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald, fresh off a Super Bowl win over the Patriots, appeared on the Dan Patrick Show this week giving a nugget about his team’s preparation for the big game. He was asked at one point about who he thought advice from that might come as a surprise, giving a fairly vague answer.

“Probably can’t mention one guy that really helped us out that had some conflict of interest,” he said.

In a follow-up, Macdonald said it was not former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. He later also clarified that it wasn’t ex-quarterback Tom Brady, despite speculation on social media running rampant that it was.

So, who was it? That is anybody’s guess at this point in time. The bigger question is how much it really matters because a) we do not know about the quality of information provided, and b) we do not even know whether that person even has direct ties to New England. For all we know, the “conflict of interest” could have been being a rival NFC West head coach who previously coached in the Super Bowl, including against the Patriots.

Week ahead

With the first wave of Patriots players not set to report to Gillette Stadium until July 22, the last quiet week of the summer — and in fact the year as a whole — is ahead of us. Of course, inactivity is not an option here at Pats Pulpit: we will continue to break down the team’s roster one player at a time, and will start looking at each individual position group in more detail soon.

Also, you can kickstart your own conversation by heading over to The Feed. It might be the offseason, but football never truly stops.