{"id":1025813,"date":"2026-10-12T20:27:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T20:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1025813\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T20:27:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T20:27:21","slug":"confident-caleb-lomu-ready-for-starting-role-after-will-campbell-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1025813\/","title":{"rendered":"Confident Caleb Lomu ready for starting role after Will Campbell injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New England Patriots saw another starter go down during Sunday\u2019s win over the Las Vegas Raiders<\/a>. Will Campbell, the team\u2019s left tackle, suffered a reported knee sprain<\/a> when he was rolled up on in the early second quarter.<\/p>\n

Even though he briefly returned to the sideline after initially departing for the locker room, the second-year man was unable to reenter the contest. In his place, Caleb Lomu finished the game as New England\u2019s left tackle \u2014 a role he will likely continue playing for however long Campbell is out.<\/p>\n

For Lomu, it was simply a case of taking his preparation to the game field and head coach Mike Vrabel\u2019s messaging to heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cInjuries are a part of football, which sucks,\u201d he said after the game. \u201cPraying for everyone who has an injury, especially Will. But whatever happens, \u2018You\u2019ve got to prepare like a starter,\u2019 is what Coach Vrabes tells us. It\u2019s completely true. Anything can happen. So, prepare as a starter throughout the week, even if you\u2019re not going to start, because things like this can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lomu was the Patriots\u2019 first-round draft pick earlier this year, but he entered the season as the team\u2019s No. 3 offensive tackle behind Campbell and right-side starter Morgan Moses. As a result, his opportunities before Week 5 were limited to jumbo tight end work and mop-up duty.<\/p>\n

Versus the Raiders, however, Lomu played a career-high 49 offensive snaps. Of those, 47 came in place of Campbell at left tackle. For the 21-year-old it was a return to familiar spheres: while primarily trained as a right tackle since arriving in New England, he spent his college career at Utah on the left side.<\/p>\n

Regardless of assignment, Lomu felt ready to be thrown into the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just ready to go,\u201d he said. \u201cJust like I said, prepare like a starter no matter what happens. As soon as it happened, I was ready to go do what I could to help the team win, and that\u2019s what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Morgan Moses, that confidence is what defines Lomu even at this early stage in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s confident,\u201d the team captain said. \u201cThat\u2019s the most important thing. You never know when your number\u2019s going to be called, and obviously he\u2019s been able to get some snaps at the big tight end spots. So, he\u2019s been able to get used to the speed from preseason into the regular season. That\u2019s always good. But he works hard. He\u2019s a young rookie that asks a lot of questions in meetings. And he asks like, \u2018Hey, how do you see things?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you build that camaraderie off the field to be able to ask questions in meetings with me and Will, it just boosts the morale for everybody. He came in, and obviously, we\u2019ve got to look at the film. There are some things that we all got to correct, but I think he did a hell of a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Campbell\u2019s outlook unclear, Lomu might be in line for his first career start at either of the two tackle spots this week. The Patriots will host the New York Jets in Week 6, a team that registered eight sacks in a win over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots saw another starter go down during Sunday\u2019s win over the Las Vegas Raiders. Will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1025814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52113,12136,726,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":["post-1025813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-england-patriots","tag-football","tag-new-england","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","tag-new-england-patriots-injuries","tag-new-england-patriots-news","tag-newengland","tag-newenglandpatriots","tag-nfl","tag-patriots"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117429825945200818","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1025814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}