transcribed<\/a> by ESPN\u2019s Mike Reiss.<\/p>\n\u201cI love that team. I love Coach [Mike] Vrabel and his staff. We had an unforgettable year, for sure. It\u2019s definitely a little sad leaving those guys but just felt like I had a great opportunity with an organization that is kind of trying to get things going in the right direction, similar to [where] New England was last year. So, I\u2019m excited to get out there and be part of the turnaround and getting back to where we just took the Patriots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally entering the NFL as a rookie free agent in 2022, Gibbens spent his first three seasons with the Titans before reuniting with his former head coach, Mike Vrabel, in New England last offseason. In his lone year with the franchise, he was actively involved on both defense and special teams.<\/p>\n
Gibbens ended the year with 604 defensive snaps (11th) and 357 special teams snaps (3rd), and started 10 of the Patriots\u2019 21 regular season and playoff contests. Despite his success as the third linebacker and as a core member in the kicking game, however, the 27-year-old was not retained in free agency.<\/p>\n
Tendering him would have cost New England a minimum of $3.55 million, a price tag seemingly deemed too big for his projected role. And so, he ended up looking elsewhere for a new home.<\/p>\n
Gibbens found it in Arizona, where he hopes to be part of a similar turnaround to the Patriots\u2019 in 2025. For him, it all starts with the foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing is getting to know everybody and forming those personal relationships,\u201d Gibbens explained. \u201cI think that was a big factor in the Patriots\u2019 success last year. That was the most connected team I\u2019ve been on \u2013 definitely in the NFL but honestly back through college and maybe ever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots\u2019 2026 free agency class was defined by departure. Of the 14 players set to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,2604,1327,7,52113,57412,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-829161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-arizonacardinals","11":"tag-cardinals","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","14":"tag-new-england-patriots-free-agency","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116278831704984620","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829161","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=829161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}