{"id":287192,"date":"2025-08-14T10:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T10:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/287192\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T10:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T10:33:10","slug":"kyle-dugger-has-been-demoted-in-practice-what-are-patriots-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/287192\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Dugger has been demoted in practice, what are Patriots’ options?"},"content":{"rendered":"

EAGEN, Minn. \u2014 The Patriots will have a difficult decision to make about safety Kyle Dugger in less than two weeks when they trim their roster down<\/a> to 53 players.<\/p>\n

Dugger, a defensive starter for the Patriots since he was selected in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft, has been demoted to the second-unit defense in recent practices.<\/p>\n

That was the case once again on Wednesday in a joint practice with the Vikings. It was Jabrill Peppers, Jaylinn Hawkins and rookie Craig Woodson taking first-team reps, while Dugger was relegated to backup duties with Marcus Epps.<\/p>\n

Head coach Mike Vrabel was asked Wednesday what Dugger, who signed a four-year, $58 million contract with $32.5 million in guarantees, could do to work back into the first-team defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just making sure that he\u2019s where he needs to be and understanding the coverage concepts and everything we do,\u201d Vrabel said. \u201cKeep working and keep progressing. A lot of this is the guys that have earned a right to take a look with that first unit, and again, there\u2019ll be different lineups and different things, so just focus on the reps that you get.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, his attitude\u2019s been great, and he\u2019s had a long recovery in the offseason. He\u2019s been out there, and he\u2019s continued to get better and work, and I think the more that he practices, the better he\u2019s going to feel and the more that it\u2019s going to translate onto the football field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dugger struggled last season while attempting to play through a high ankle sprain<\/a>. He missed spring practices but began the summer on the first-team defense. Over the last week, it\u2019s become clear that Hawkins has, at least for now, taken over his role at safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s done a nice job of coming in, communicating and playing pretty much all the different techniques that we\u2019ve asked these guys to do on the back end,\u201d Vrabel said of Hawkins. \u201cI think he\u2019s playing with some speed and plays with some physicality. You saw a couple passes out to the perimeter that he was on and tight coverage in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just really evaluated him and decided to get him back from last year. He did a nice job and played all special teams, played a lot of defense when guys went down. So, he\u2019s continuing to take advantage of his opportunities, and then we\u2019ll see where that goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawkins was one of the few Patriots free agents brought back by Vrabel\u2019s regime. This summer, when the Patriots held an intra-squad scrimmage, Hawkins was among the Patriots\u2019 captains.<\/p>\n

Dugger, meanwhile, has the third-highest base salary ($9.75 million) on the Patriots this season. He can make an additional $1 million in per-game roster bonuses. So, if he\u2019s kept, the team would be paying him over $10 million to be a backup.<\/p>\n

There aren\u2019t any perfect avenues to take with Dugger\u2019s future, however. Cutting Dugger, whose salary is guaranteed this season, would result in $14.25 million in dead money and just over $1 million in cap savings. Trading Dugger would free up over $10 million in cap space, but it would be extremely difficult to find a trade partner willing to take on a $9.75 million salary for a 29-year-old player returning from injury.<\/p>\n

The Patriots do have nearly $60 million in cap space, so if any team is equipped to cut a player and take on a massive amount of dead money, it\u2019s them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EAGEN, Minn. \u2014 The Patriots will have a difficult decision to make about safety Kyle Dugger in less…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"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-287192","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\/115026670772413251","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287192","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=287192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}