The New England Patriots entered their 2025 training camp with Kyle Dugger and Jabrill Peppers seemingly the undisputed top two options at safety. They exited with Dugger relegated to backup duty and Peppers off the team entirely (a fate Dugger also would later meet).<\/p>\n
In their place, Jaylinn Hawkins and Craig Woodson had emerged as the starting duo and every-down players in New England\u2019s new-look secondary. Heading into 2026, Woodson will not be going anywhere. Hawkins\u2019 future, on the other hand, is less clear: he is set to enter free agency in mid-March and coming off the best season of his career could be of some interest to other teams.<\/p>\n
The Patriots know this as well. And yet, they plan to be patient with the 28-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cHawkins is a free agent, and he\u2019s earned the opportunity to see what\u2019s out there,\u201d executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf said at the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis on Tuesday. \u201cBut he\u2019s certainly someone that we would welcome back.\u201d<\/p>\n
New England letting Hawkins test free agency is not a new approach for the team. In the past, the Patriots have repeatedly given players an opportunity to enter and evaluate their markets while keeping an open dialogue with the organization.<\/p>\n
Still, there is a risk involved in that approach Wolf and company are seemingly willing to take. That risk, of course, is Hawkins pricing himself out of the Patriots\u2019 comfort zone and leaving the team.<\/p>\n
If so, a major spot would open up in a secondary otherwise set to be quite stable this offseason. Hawkins, after all, started all of the 19 games he appeared in last season and was on the field for 85.8% of defensive snaps. He also registered four interceptions \u2014 tied with Marcus Jones for the team lead \u2014 and forced and recovered one fumble each on the year.<\/p>\n
More importantly than his stats, though, might have been his ability to perfectly fit the defense the Patriots are envisioning. As Wolf explained, the Patriots\u2019 safeties \u201chave to be able to do everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have to be able to play down in the box, man cover, tackle in space, and having guys that are interchangeable just kind of opens up a lot of different things for the defense that Zak Kuhr and Terrell Williams can kind of employ,\u201d he added before also highlighting other key areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunication is so underrated at that position. I think maybe a lot of fans don\u2019t understand that being able to communicate, set the defense, that\u2019s something that we talked to the coaching staffs in college about and just making sure that anyone that comes in has to be able to communicate and be smart. But on the field, it\u2019s the athleticism, it\u2019s the change of direction, it\u2019s the speed and range. The anticipation that these guys play with are very important traits that we look for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hawkins has shown that he can do all the Patriots are looking for. Now, the question becomes whether the two sides reach an agreement about how valuable those traits are.<\/p>\n
The market seemingly will be used to help them find that middle ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots entered their 2025 training camp with Kyle Dugger and Jabrill Peppers seemingly the undisputed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52113,57412,3529,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-775585","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-new-england-patriots-first-read","12":"tag-new-england-patriots-free-agency","13":"tag-new-england-patriots-rumors","14":"tag-newengland","15":"tag-newenglandpatriots","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116131753135804507","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775585","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=775585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}