catching seven passes<\/a> on seven targets during 11-on-11 work.<\/p>\nA team source said Chism earned those opportunities, including ones in the first-team offense with Maye, with his consistency and ability to pick up the mental aspect of the game quickly.<\/p>\n
Head coach Mike Vrabel echoed those sentiments Tuesday before the second and final day of Patriots minicamp practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s a talented player. I think he has a certain skill set. He\u2019s dedicated. He\u2019s studied extremely hard. He has a good feel for what we\u2019re asking him to do,\u201d Vrabel said. \u201cI think the biggest thing for receivers is that there\u2019s trust from the guy that throws the football. When you earn the quarterback\u2019s trust \u2013 any one of them that we have, any one of the three \u2013 it doesn\u2019t take you long to figure out who the quarterback trusts. It\u2019s the ones they target. That\u2019s a good indicator.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chism was a favorite target of Maye, Joshua Dobbs and fellow undrafted rookie Ben Wooldridge during the spring, but his next test comes during training camp when the pads come on. Standout performances during unpadded, non-contact OTAs are not necessarily an indicator of future success.<\/p>\n
But Chism is certainly taking the correct approach at learning Josh McDaniels\u2019 historically difficult offensive playbook.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust grinding it,\u201d Chism said. \u201cI\u2019m here late. I\u2019m up early, doing it all \u2013 looking at flash cards. I\u2019m a big flash cards guy. But walking through it, everything I can just to try to get that extra step and just keep stacking those extra steps each and every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chism, a Monroe, Wash.-native, watched Seahawks slot receiver Doug Baldwin growing up. He also studied his fellow Eastern Washington alum Cooper Kupp. But he plans on putting in more work on Patriots slot receivers of the past like Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, Wes Welker and Troy Brown.<\/p>\n
Chism, like those four wide receivers, isn\u2019t necessarily a speed demon on the field, but he has the requisite change of direction skills to play inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s kind of another one of my goals coming these next couple weeks we got the time off, is just to go through a bunch of (Patriots) seasons, watch a bunch of games, see how they did it, because it\u2019s pretty much same offense, a lot of the same stuff,\u201d Chism said. \u201cSo just see how they did it, and trying to try to develop that into my game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old said he would specifically watch to see how they get open against man coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, they feel zones very well. I think that\u2019s very special with all of them, seeing when they sit, when they run, certain things like that,\u201d Chism said. \u201cBut I mean, in this league, especially coming from the FCS, people are going to say the man coverage is going to be the biggest part of getting open. So, you know, just seeing what they did and take that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chism earned FCS first-team All-American honors in 2024 by posting 120 receptions for 1,311 yards with 13 touchdowns. Over five years at Eastern Washington, Chism caught 346 passes for 3,852 yards with 37 touchdowns. He also contributed as a punt returner (56 returns for 257 yards) and kick returner (31 returns for 651 yards).<\/p>\n
The Patriots rookie, a non-combine invitee who ran a 4.72-second 40-yard dash with a 1.62-second 10-yard split, 34.5-inch vertical leap, 9-feet, 10-inch broad jump, 6.77-second 3-cone drill, 4.06-second short shuttle and 16 bench press reps of 225 pounds at his pro day in March, would have liked to hear his name called during the 2025 NFL Draft but will use his undrafted status as motivation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a bunch of little things \u2013 taken from an FCS school, not getting drafted \u2013 I\u2019m always gonna bring up myself for motivation, but at the end of the day, it\u2019s just opportunity. And Coach Vrabel said that: \u2018Don\u2019t care how you got here, it\u2019s opportunity now.\u2019 So I\u2019m excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Undrafted players have an uphill climb to make an NFL roster, but Welker, Amendola and Jakobi Meyers, another former Patriots slot receiver, all entered the league as undrafted free agents. Edelman was a seventh-round pick, and Brown was an eighth-rounder.<\/p>\n
Chism is also in a crowded group of wide receivers. Stefon Diggs, Mack Hollins and Kyle Williams look like locks, while Chism has a chance to compete with Javon Baker, Demeer Blankumsee, Kendrick Bourne, Kayshon Boutte, DeMario Douglas, John Jiles, Ja\u2019Lynn Polk and Jeremiah Webb for snaps and roster spots.<\/p>\n
Chism is far from guaranteed a roster spot, but if he continues to master the playbook and earn the trust of his quarterbacks, he could be next in a long list of unheralded Patriots slot receivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FOXBORO \u2013 Patriots undrafted rookie wide receiver Efton Chism drew the attention of his quarterback, Drake Maye, during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2050],"tags":[80,833,839,7,838,1167,249,2326,2094,6,15,835,832,208,836,834,831,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-126296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-2025-nfl-draft","9":"tag-drake-maye","10":"tag-eliot-wolf","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-mike-vrabel","13":"tag-new-england","14":"tag-new-england-patriots","15":"tag-newengland","16":"tag-newenglandpatriots","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-nfl-draft","19":"tag-nfl-news","20":"tag-nfl-rumors","21":"tag-patriots","22":"tag-patriots-2025","23":"tag-patriots-news","24":"tag-patriots-rumors","25":"tag-robert-kraft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114675391317036111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126296","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=126296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}