https://sports.yahoo.com/article/patriots-2025-roster-reset-offensive-085830110.html
Patriots 2025 roster reset: How can the offensive line be overhauled? originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Editor’s Note: With the beginning of NFL free agency looming on March 12, our Patriots Insider Tom E. Curran is resetting each Patriots position by assessing their 2024 performance, laying out their 2025 contract status and ranking their offseason priority on a scale of 1 to 5.
After quarterbacks, running backs, tight ends and wide receivers, next up is the offensive line.
Remember that spontaneous laugh from Sean McVay when the Patriots drafted Cole Strange back in 2022? Looking back, it really was a watershed moment for the Patriots. It was confirmation that their top-of-the-draft reaches weren’t just perplexing, they were laughably off-the-wall.
McVay’s cackle was a real-time reaction from a coach who’d sooner gargle razor blades than be caught criticizing Bill Belichick in public.
McVay later apologized, explaining he wasn’t being disrespectful. He was marveling at his own team’s flawed scouting of Strange, thinking he’d be there later. If the Patriots had Strange as a first-rounder and the Rams saw him as a fourth, clearly the Patriots had outfoxed everyone again.
Bill must know something we don’t.
As Rams GM Les Snead explained, “A long time ago, the New England Patriots drafted a guy named Logan Mankins from right up the road in Fresno. He was a left tackle, they moved him inside. About 10 years later, he had a lot of Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl.”
They were All-Pros and poor Mankins never won a Super Bowl. But the point stands. The Patriots offensive line evaluations, drafting and coaching was brilliant for a long time. And then it wasn’t.
And now — after another dismal season up front — the Patriots remain the worst offensive line in the league.
These are the offensive linemen drafted since 2017: Layden Robinson, Caedan Wallace, Jake Andrews, Sidy Sow, Atonio Mafi, Cole Strange, Chasen Hines, Andrew Steuber, William Sherman, Michael Onwenu, Justin Herron, Dustin Woodard, Yodny Cajuste, Hjalte Froholdt, Isaiah Wynn, Antonio Garcia and Conor McDermott.
Aside from Onwenu, you have to go back to 2016 to find a player you’d describe as “good.” They got Joe Thuney and Ted Karras that year. You can’t live like that!
The Patriots enter the 2025 season with one long-term answer on their roster on the offensive line: Onwenu. The starters and the depth at every position need bolstering. And the team desperately needs coaching continuity.
Doug Marrone is the new offensive line coach brought in by Mike Vrabel. Marrone is the sixth offensive line coach since 2020. Cole Popovich, Carmen Bricillo, Matt Patricia, Adrian Klemm and Scott Peters preceded Marrone.
Mike Onwenu (above) and David Andrews are the only offensive linemen who have been with the Patriots for more than three seasons.
Bright spots
One “bright spot” indicative of how rough things were up front for the Patriots? The performance of center Ben Brown against the Houston Texans after joining the team four days earlier. Brown, who came to the team two weeks after David Andrews was lost for the season with a shoulder injury, was the team’s “best lineman,” according to head coach Jerod Mayo, in a 42-21 loss to the Texans.
Brown had been toiling on the Raiders practice squad before being signed. That he was able to walk in and be the team’s best lineman four days after arriving? That’s jarring.
If Andrews hadn’t been injured, and if Strange was able to play, and if Onwenu could have stayed at his accustomed guard spot, maybe the results would have been better. But none of those things happened.
It was a shuffle all season because the team did a poor job acquiring capable players in the offseason when it ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY had to stop the bleeding from previous years.
The disappointments
Sixteen players took snaps on the offensive line last season. The one starting-caliber lineman acquired in the offseason – Chukwuma Okorafor– played 12 snaps in the opener then quit the team. Projected starter Sidy Sow fell into disuse. Then Andrews got hurt in Week 4. Third-rounder Caedan Wallace suffered an ankle injury and played six games. Strange was available for just three games at the end of the year.
Nick Leverett and Michael Jordan were released during the year for poor performance. Atonio Mafi, a fifth-rounder the Patriots traded up to get in 2023, was released in training camp. It was a disaster.
These are the 13 players under contract currently: Onwenu, Andrews, Strange, Wallace, Sow, Layden Robinson, Vederian Lowe, Demontrey Jacobs, Caleb Jones, Ben Brown, Jake Andrews, Lecitus Smith and Tyrese Robinson.
From that, the team has to cobble together a group to protect Drake Maye.
Contract statuses
Onwenu, who re-signed last offseason, has a base salary of $12 million and a cap hit of $21 million this season.
Andrews is next up on the 2025 salary/cap hit list with a $4 million base salary and $6.6 million cap hit. Strange and Lowe are the only others with salaries over $2 million and cap hits over $3 million.
Offseason priority (Scale of 1-5)
It’s a 5. The team needs to fill both starting tackle spots. It needs a left guard to replace or succeed Strange. It needs to find a center to succeed Andrews, who has expressed an interest in continuing to play. He’ll be 33 in July.
Ravens tackle Ronnie Stanley is the best prospective free agent left tackle. Bad news on that front from ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, who reports, “The sense (at the NFL Combine) is that the Ravens and left tackle Ronnie Stanley can agree to terms on an extension in the coming days. Some inside the league are projecting that deal to land somewhere between $21-23 million per year.”
Cam Robinson, Dan Moore and Morgan Moses are candidates for the Patriots to pursue as well, but the pickings are VERY slim.
In the draft, there’s no layup guy to take at No. 4. LSU’s Will Campbell is excellent but his measurables are a concern (short arms). He’s the only player meriting consideration at that spot. Next would be Missouri’s Armand Membou, a right tackle who may be better suited for guard.
Kelvin Banks Jr. from Texas is a Top 50 prospect for NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah, as is Josh Simmons from Ohio State, who’s coming back from a torn patella tendon but may have been the best tackle prospect prior to the injury.
https://sports.yahoo.com/article/patriots-2025-roster-reset-offensive-085830110.html
