On Thursday, the Jacksonville Jaguars announced they have signed<\/a> the veteran defender. The Detroit Lions<\/a> selected Tavai with the No. 43 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. He played for the Lions from 2019-20 before signing with the Patriots<\/a> in 2021.<\/p>\n Tavai started in 51 of the 76 games that he played for New England during his time with the team. He recorded 42 total tackles, including four tackles for loss, as well as a forced fumble in his final season with the Patriots in 2025, prior to being cut and entering free agency.<\/p>\n The California native now joins the Jaguars<\/a> in the midst of the team\u2019s training camp this summer. Tavai approaches his age-30 season in the NFL with Jacksonville in 2026.<\/p>\n The Jaguars waived linebacker Jared Bartlett with an injury designation in a corresponding move.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a> Follow\u00a0Patriots<\/a>\u00a0Wire on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated Aug. 6, 2026, 9:22 p.m. ET Former New England Patriots linebacker Jahlani Tavai has found a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":966540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060],"tags":[95878,7,212,125,2401,213,6,119589,96851,96852,95882,95887,96242,95893,95936,104389,95896,96854,95888,95895,95899,95883,95894,95881],"class_list":["post-966539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-accessfree","tag-football","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-jacksonvillejaguars","tag-jaguars","tag-nfl","tag-sourcepatriots-wire","tag-sstssportsnflpatriots","tag-sstsnpatriots","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagamerican-football-conference","tag-tagdetroit-lions","tag-tagfacebook","tag-tagjacksonville-jaguars","tag-tagjahlani-tavai","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnew-england-patriots","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtwitter","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966539","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=966539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/966540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/86371878007-cardis-1.jpg\")