{"id":855409,"date":"2026-04-05T16:54:53","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T16:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/855409\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T16:54:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T16:54:53","slug":"patriots-told-to-circle-back-to-a-player-they-moved-on-from-this-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/855409\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots told to circle back to a player they moved on from this offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5f\">Going into the 2026 offseason, the Patriots were fortunate not to have many players set to hit free agency, so they wouldn&#8217;t lose many contributors from their Super Bowl appearance season. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5i\">That didn&#8217;t mean they weren&#8217;t going to move on from some contributors; however, one of them was Anfernee Jennings, <a href=\"https:\/\/musketfire.com\/patriots-failed-trade-could-come-back-to-haunt-them-over-a-top-cut-candidate-01kjx4ysen13\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">who had been a trade candidate from the summer to the trade deadline<\/a>, only to become one of the rising stars of the defense as the season progressed. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5l\">He was inevitably not retained and is now a free agent, but Chowder &amp; Champions writer Efstathios Savvidis <a href=\"https:\/\/chowderandchampions.com\/anfernee-jennings-quiet-free-agency-back-patriots-01kmpry0f25m\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">believes they should reconsider their stance, especially since<\/a> they still need help at the linebacker position going into the draft.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5o\">&#8220;Although Jennings didn\u2019t have a great regular season showing, he made up for it by elevating his play in the postseason. He stepped up while [Harold] Landry was sidelined, logging 16 total tackles, two sacks, and five hurries across four games.\u00a0&#8220;<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5r\">Considering their remaining free agent options, Savvidis&#8217; idea isn&#8217;t a bad one for the Patriots&#8217; depth.<\/p>\n<p>The Patriots might want to consider re-signing Anfernee Jennings <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5x\">Because linebacker is considered one of their biggest needs going into the draft, it wouldn&#8217;t be a bad idea for the Patriots to consider bringing back a familiar face to fill the depth chart and add some veteran security at the position.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">Jennings might not be a superstar, but he was productive enough, particularly when the team needed it the most, that he would be a good rotational piece to have that always provides some consistency defensively that they might not be considering.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">Since <a href=\"https:\/\/musketfire.com\/patriots-just-saved-3-8-million-with-a-move-that-always-felt-inevitable-nfl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he&#8217;s still a free agent and there hasn&#8217;t been much said <\/a>about teams being interested in signing him, they could probably re-sign Jennings to a cheaper deal, maybe just one-year, and see if he can replicate the postseason performance he put up, or even build upon it.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">It seems like a safe decision for the front office to consider and help address a position of need a bit more ahead of the draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Going into the 2026 offseason, the Patriots were fortunate not to have many players set to hit free&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-855409","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-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116353153340983504","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855409","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=855409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}