{"id":163935,"date":"2025-06-28T00:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T00:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/163935\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T00:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T00:48:10","slug":"patriots-deploying-marte-mapu-at-lb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/163935\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots Deploying Marte Mapu At LB"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patriots defender Marte Mapu<\/a> spent most of the team\u2019s spring practices as a linebacker, according to The Boston Globe\u2019s Ben Volin<\/a>, signaling a potential role change headed into training camp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>At 6-foot-3 230-pounds, Mapu has the size and athleticism to drop into coverage or blitz from the second level. He was listed as a safety in college but primarily played out of the slot with a secondary role in the box. During his first two NFL seasons, he played 313 snaps in the box, 221 as a free safety, and 100 in the slot, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Mapu will have to compete with\u00a0Jack Gibbens<\/a> and\u00a0Jahlani Tavai<\/a> for the backup linebacker jobs behind Robert Spillane<\/a> and Christian Elliss<\/a>, who took first-team reps in the spring, per ESPN\u2019s Mike Reiss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gibbens signed with the Patriots this offseason after starting his career under Mike Vrabel<\/a> in Tennessee. That should give him a strong chance at making the roster, but only $300k of his $1.3MM deal is guaranteed, per OverTheCap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tavai, meanwhile, is recovering from a calf injury suffered in OTAs. That may threaten his roster odds, according to Volin, but he still has $2.1MM of guaranteed salary across the next two seasons that could discourage the Patriots from releasing him.<\/p>\n

The Patriots could also choose to carry all five linebackers knowing that Mapu can also provide depth in the secondary if needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patriots defender Marte Mapu spent most of the team\u2019s spring practices as a linebacker, according to The Boston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[11813,7,6304,6307,1167,249,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-163935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-christian-elliss","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jahlani-tavai","11":"tag-marte-mapu","12":"tag-new-england","13":"tag-new-england-patriots","14":"tag-newengland","15":"tag-newenglandpatriots","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163935","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=163935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}