{"id":873964,"date":"2026-04-25T01:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T01:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/873964\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T01:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T01:00:18","slug":"new-england-patriots-select-illini-edge-gabe-jacas-in-second-round-of-2026-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/873964\/","title":{"rendered":"New England Patriots select Illini EDGE Gabe Jacas in second round of 2026 NFL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New England Patriots drafted Illinois<\/a> edge rusher\u00a0Gabe Jacas<\/a> in the\u00a0second round (55th overall pick) of the 2026 NFL Draft on Friday. The Patriots traded up to select Jacas.<\/p>\n

Jacas was a First Team All-Big Ten selection and last season became just the fifth Illinois player to top 10.0 sacks in a single season, joining Simeon Rice\u00a0(x2), Whitney Mercilus<\/a>, Mike Poloskey and Scott Davis. Jacas led the Big Ten with 11.0 sacks during the regular season and was tied for 10th among all Big Ten players in quarterback pressures (41).<\/p>\n

Jacas finished his Illini career second in program history in career sacks (27.0), behind only\u00a0 Rice (44.5), who holds the Big Ten sacks record. Jacas tied for sixth in program history with seven career forced fumbles.<\/p>\n

In four years at Illinois, Jacas was a three-time All-Big Ten selection and finished his career with 183 tackles, 35.5 TFLs, 27 sacks, 2 passes defensed, seven forced fumbles and a fumble recovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jacas was a three-star prospect in the Class of 2022 out of Fort Pierce (Fla.) Central High school and was ranked No. 1261 in the industry-generated Composite rankings. He was the No. 75-ranked EDGE player in the country and the No. 164-ranked player in the state of Florida. He flipped his commitment from Tulane<\/a> to Illinois, and the Illini held off a late push by Tennessee<\/a> to land Jacas.<\/p>\n

Why it matters:\u00a0The Illini have had a top-100 draft pick of Bielema’s five years at Illinois and have had a player drafted in the top two rounds\u00a0in three of Bielema’s five seasons at Illinois.\u00a0Jacas is the sixth Illini defensive player to be drafted under head coach Bret Bielema and the sixth to go in the top three rounds of the draft. Illinois did a good job\u00a0of evaluating Jacas on the recruiting trail \u2014 thanks to Bielema’s ties in the state of Florida \u2014 and\u00a0in keeping him out of the transfer portal and developing him into an NFL Draft pick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coach quote: “When he is an engaged rusher, he’s a really tough task to block,” said Illinois head coach Bret Bielema<\/a>. “He’s so powerful. He really does lean well and bends well. He’s such a high motor guy, great power. It was fun to see him grow this year. Even in some adverse moments, he’s probably been one of our most steady performers. I don’t know how high he’s going to go in the draft. He’ll probably be, in my opinion, our highest draft pick. It hasn’t come easy. He’s worked very hard.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

NFL.com scouting report: “Jacas is well-built with tremendous play strength and the ability to play as a hand-down end or a stand-up edge. He’s more rugged than explosive and twitchy. He can hold his ground against power but needs to do a better job of playing with discipline to set and contain his edge. Jacas’ pass-rush plan lacks creativity but features a good deal of force and leg drive to bully his way into the pocket once he opens the tackle’s edge. His play is more steak than sizzle with average sack production expected, but his field demeanor and play strength foreshadow a long career as an NFL starter.” \u2014 Lance Zierlein, NFL analyst<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots drafted Illinois edge rusher\u00a0Gabe Jacas in the\u00a0second round (55th overall pick) of the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873965,"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-873964","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\/116462644348427434","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873964","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=873964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}