{"id":794879,"date":"2026-03-05T23:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T23:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/794879\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T23:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T23:54:14","slug":"patriots-sign-ex-cardinals-draft-pick-ahead-of-nfl-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/794879\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots sign ex-Cardinals draft pick ahead of NFL free agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The New England Patriots have added edge rush ahead of the 2026 league year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Luketa, 27, finished the 2025 season on the practice squad of the Los Angeles Rams. The 6-foot-3, 260-pound November arrival became a street free agent in February after not being retained in the NFC West on a futures contract.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Among the transactions at Gillette Stadium now, he checks in as the first external signing of March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Entering the NFL in the seventh round of the 2022 draft at No. 256 overall, Luketa spent his initial three campaigns with the Arizona Cardinals. The Penn State product appeared in 31 games over that span.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A three-game starter, Luketa\u2019s time in the league has included 35 tackles, three sacks and one forced fumble. He stands with 367 snaps on defense and 546 snaps on special teams, but did not see game action in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Luketa was a territorial CFL draft pick by the Ottawa Redblacks after closing out his Nittany Lions career as a captain and third-team All-Big Ten selection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The new league year officially opens next Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots have added edge rush ahead of the 2026 league year. Luketa, 27, finished the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,57412,726,728,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-794879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-new-england-patriots-free-agency","10":"tag-new-england-patriots-news","11":"tag-new-england-patriots-roster","12":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116179269759373895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794879","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=794879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}