{"id":183989,"date":"2025-07-05T18:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T18:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/183989\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T18:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T18:29:10","slug":"former-patriots-pro-bowler-looking-for-right-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/183989\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Patriots Pro Bowler Looking For &#8216;Right Situation&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why can\u2019t the New England Patriots get players like this? Former All-Pro cornerback <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/07\/ex-patriots-star-reveals-time-bill-belichick-nearly-made-him-cry\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stephon Gilmore<\/a> says he\u2019s looking for a home for his 14th season in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to play this year, it\u2019s just got to be the right situation,\u201d he said on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RD7MEtpLi_U\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">The Money Down<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RD7MEtpLi_U\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">podcast<\/a>, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/free-agent-cb-stephon-gilmore-hopes-to-play-in-right-situation-this-year-i-still-can-contribute\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">transcribed by NFL.com<\/a> \u201cIt\u2019s got to be the right situation for me. I\u2019m not just gonna sign anywhere. \u2026 I still love the game. I still can contribute. It\u2019s just got to be the right place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At this point, Gilmore is certainly on the down side of his career. He <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2024\/08\/nfl-rumors-stephon-gilmore-agrees-to-join-nfc-team\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">played last year for the Minnesota Vikings<\/a> and had just one interception. \u201cHis coverage ability took a dip in his age-34 season with the Vikings, and his 60.4 PFF grade in that category marked his third-worst of his career,\u201d NFL.com\u2019s Bobby Kownack noted.<\/p>\n<p>Gilmore, a five-time Pro Bowl selection and two-time first-team All-Pro, enjoyed his greatest success with the Patriots from 2017 to 2020. His best campaign came in 2019, when he tied for the league lead with six interceptions and added 20 passes defended while on his way to earning <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2020\/01\/stephon-gilmore-selected-as-nfl-defensive-player-of-the-year-by-pfwa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Defensive Player of the Year honors<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>His time in Foxboro ended during the 2021 season when <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2021\/10\/patriots-officially-trade-stephon-gilmore-to-panthers-for-2023-draft-pick\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New England traded Gilmore<\/a> to the Carolina Panthers. He signed as a free agent with the Indianapolis Colts ahead of the 2022 campaign. The Colts <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2023\/08\/patriots-pushed-hard-for-stephon-gilmore-trade-colts-cowboys\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shipped Gilmore to the Dallas Cowboys<\/a> in March of 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>So after bouncing around the NFL for the last four years, could a return to New England be in the works? Upon first glance, Gilmore doesn\u2019t seem like a good fit. The Patriots are loaded in the secondary, with Christian Gonzalez and Marcus Jones locked in at cornerback. At this point, it could be argued improving the pass rush (<a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/07\/patriots-tj-watt-trade-scenario\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">T.J. Watt?<\/a>) is more important than depth in the defensive backfield.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>That said, everything can change when training camp begins later this month. A poor performance here, an injury there and it\u2019s very possible a path back to the Patriots makes sense. Heck, if Gilmore is willing to embrace a limited role so he can tutor New England\u2019s rising stars, who says you can\u2019t go home?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why can\u2019t the New England Patriots get players like this? Former All-Pro cornerback Stephon Gilmore says he\u2019s looking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,2326,2094,6,208,9896],"class_list":{"0":"post-183989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-new-england","10":"tag-new-england-patriots","11":"tag-newengland","12":"tag-newenglandpatriots","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-patriots","15":"tag-stephon-gilmore"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114802050289737830","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183989","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=183989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}