{"id":809183,"date":"2026-03-13T01:39:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T01:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/809183\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T01:39:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T01:39:18","slug":"new-uniform-numbers-for-patriots-free-agent-signings-announced-98-5-the-sports-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/809183\/","title":{"rendered":"New uniform numbers for Patriots free agent signings announced &#8211; 98.5 The Sports Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the New England Patriots introduced their new free agent signings on Thursday, they also assigned them all new uniform numbers. Those were posted to the team website shortly after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patriots.com\/news\/patriots-announce-free-agent-signings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">the signings were officially announced<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>In total, seven free agent signings were made official for Thursday, with all seven of those players getting to pick their jersey number. They are&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>EDGE Dre&#8217;Mont Jones: 5<br \/>S Kevin Byard: 31<br \/>S Mike Brown: 33<br \/>FB Reggie Gilliam: 44<br \/>G Alijah Vera-Tucker: 75<br \/>TE Julian Hill: 80<br \/>WR Romeo Doubs: 87<\/p>\n<p>The one that will jump out to Patriots fans right away is &#8211; of course &#8211; No. 87. That was the number worn by legendary tight end Rob Gronkowski during his career. <\/p>\n<p>What might surprise Patriots fans is the fact that his is not the first time the number has been re-issued since Gronkowski&#8217;s retirement. Multiple practice squad wide receivers and tight ends have worn it, including a few that made it into games. Matt Sokol wore it for a combined six games between 2022 and 2023, and then Jack Westover wore it in three games in 2024 before changing his number when he moved to fullback. <\/p>\n<p>As for Doubs, he&#8217;s not picking the number out of nowhere. That was his jersey number throughout his time in Green Bay. <\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Byard has a number that was already in use with the Patriots. He&#8217;ll get Craig Woodson&#8217;s No. 31, while Woodson will move to No. 4 for his second year in the league. Byard has worn 31 throughout his NFL career. His college No. 20 &#8211; which is retired in his honor at Middle Tennessee State &#8211; is retired by the Patriots in honor of Gino Cappelletti.<\/p>\n<p>Not every player was able to get their previous number though. Gilliam shared with a laugh that he&#8217;d asked Brenden Schooler about No. 41, but that Schooler wouldn&#8217;t give it up. Instead he gets No. 44 &#8211; a &#8220;traditional fullback number&#8221; as he called it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the New England Patriots introduced their new free agent signings on Thursday, they also assigned them all&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,2326,2094,6,2592,208,111578],"class_list":{"0":"post-809183","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-nfl-free-agency","15":"tag-patriots","16":"tag-patriots-offseason-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116219318968921244","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809183","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=809183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}