One advantage of having NFL Coach of the Year Mike Vrabel as Patriots head coach is his prior connections to players who are available in free agency.
Last offseason, the Vrabel connection drew key contributors like Robert Spillane and Harold Landry III to New England. This spring, Vrabel is reuniting with All-Pro safety Kevin Byard III, one of the Patriots head coach’s best players from their time together in Tennessee. Byard joins a slew of former Titans coaches and players as one of the Patriots biggest free-agent signings to upgrade their defense, which has a case to be one of the best secondaries in the NFL.
“To say [the coaching staff] is ecstatic is an understatement,” EVP of Player Personnel Eliot Wolf said about adding Byard. “I know he’s an older player, but I haven’t seen any real drop-off from him. He proved that last year by obviously making All-Pro.”
The NFL’s reigning interceptions leader acknowledged his history with Vrabel was a factor in his decision to sign with the Patriots. However, Byard pointed to other factors on top of his relationship with Vrabel that drew him to New England, such as a winning culture, QB Drake Maye, and the Patriots talented secondary that includes Pro Bowl CB Christian Gonzalez and second-year S Craig Woodson, whom Byard can now mentor in the Patriots safety room.
“If I wasn’t going back to Chicago, this was my top destination. Not necessarily just because of the relationship I have with Vrabes and a ton of other coaches and people in this building that I’m familiar with,” Byard said. “I just think the culture of this team, this organization, is obviously a winning culture. The pieces that they have in place, whether it’s the quarterback, the secondary, all those things. It makes it very attractive for any free agent to want to come here.
“Something I enjoyed about being in Chicago was Caleb Williams, who is a really great quarterback, and being a part of that. One of the hardest things to get right in the NFL [is the quarterback position]. New England has it right with Drake Maye,” Byard continued. “To be able to play with some of the pieces this team has on defense, who I think played really well last year, especially in the Super Bowl.”
At age 32, Byard continued to be one of the premier ball-hawks in the NFL last season, leading the league with seven interceptions while ranking 14th in Pro Football Focus grade among safeties (75.4). Along with his production on the field, Byard has also been remarkably healthy throughout his career. He has never missed a game in his 10-year career (164 regular-season games), including all 19 games for Chicago in 2025.
“I would definitely give credit to God for a lot of that, especially when it comes to health. But also a lot of preparation. It’s offseason training, the way I train. I take a lot of pride in that because, like I said, just in my preparation, my routine. I try to be a great pro,” Byard said.
Last season, the Bears primarily used Byard as a deep (free) safety. Byard played 74.4% of his snaps at free safety, with only a 17.2% snap rate in the box. More specifically, Byard’s average distance from the ball at the snap was 11.1 yards, 14th among 88 qualified safeties. Chicago mostly had Byard playing deep-safety zones, with the veteran safety’s most common coverage assignments being 205 coverage snaps as a post-safety (cover-1/cover-3) and 147 coverage snaps as a split-field safety defender (cover two). In both roles, Byard is tasked with covering the deep part of the field over the top of the defense.
For comparison, Byard was more versatile in his final full season with Vrabel in Tennessee. With the Titans, Byard’s average depth from the line of scrimmage was 9.2 yards, balancing snaps at free safety (506), in the box (393), and slot corner (201). Byard’s usage in Chicago was more on par with the player he’s replacing in the Patriots secondary, Jaylinn Hawkins, whose average depth at the snap was 10.5 yards last season. Hawkins did play slightly more in the box (24.5%) and was used more as a blitzer, especially in the postseason (35 pass-rush snaps), than Byard did with the Bears (12 pass-rush snaps). But you can see the overlap in their deployment.
On film, Byard still has the range to play deep safety zones to go along with elite instincts when he’s in ball-hawking positions with his eyes in the backfield. Although he’d primarily play as a deep safety, the Bears would occasionally rotate Byard into the short zone distribution, either as a curl/flat defender (52 snaps) or a cover-two hole player (16 snaps). Between those two coverage assignments, Byard had three of his league-high seven interceptions last season.