It wasn’t a surprise when the Patriots drafted a center in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft. After releasing longtime captain David Andrews, the team needed long-term security.
Jared Wilson made sense.
The Georgia product was considered the best pure center in this draft. His 4.84 40-yard dash led all players at his position at the Combine. In that run, he hit 21.04 MPH, which is the fastest ever tracked for a center at that scouting event.
Little did many know, that Wilson made even more sense for Mike Vrabel and the Patriots. Leading up to the draft, the 21-year-old connected with former NFL center Ben Jones.
An 11-year veteran, Jones was Vrabel’s starting center in Tennessee for the last five seasons of his career. He was also a favorite of the new Patriots coach.
“Me and Ben Jones, we talk a lot. He was in this offense with Vrabel and also with the Texans,” Wilson said. “We talked a little bit about how his rookie year went, how his rookie minicamp went. He’s been giving me some good words of encouragement.”
Before arriving in Foxborough, Wilson asked Jones what he could expect. The former center told him to ‘take it slow’ and realize he was going to make mistakes. As Wilson met with the media, on Friday after his first rookie minicamp practice, he admitted that one mistake he made was running through his head.
Wilson planned to watch the practice over, learn from it, and get better.
If all goes well, Wilson, like Jones, could turn into a stable presence for Vrabel’s offensive line.
Back in 2022, cameras caught an interaction between Vrabel and Jones as they walked off the field following a Titans win. The center started and finished that game dealing with a leg injury.
“I’ve seen anything like it,” Vrabel told Jones as they walked into the stadium. “I love you like my (expletive) own, year hear me?”
Jones and Vrabel overlapped on the Houston Texans for two seasons (2014 and 2015). Two years later, Vrabel was hired as the Titans head coach and the pair reunited, again. Jones played for the coach for five seasons, ending Pro Bowl honors in 2022.
It’s only fitting that in Vrabel’s first draft as the Patriots head coach, he selected a center being mentored by Jones this offseason.
Wilson connected with Jones, who also went to Georgia, at a Bulldogs practice.
“I’ve probably talked to Ben personally - two or three times he came to practice,” Wilson said. “We just talked. He’d come out and watch practice. We’ve been on Zooms together right before we came up here. It’s been good hearing him talk and about what he thinks and also watching his film and how he did it.”
When Vrabel was coaching in Tennessee, he showed players like Jones how much he cared. After one day of rookie minicamp, Wilson said that was already evident.
“Vrabel’s a funny guy. He’s definitely a player’s coach, Wilson said. “He played in the league for a really long time, so he knows what it’s supposed to look like, how it’s supposed to look like, what the speeds supposed to be like.
“And he cares about this organization and about the players. You can tell how he comes into the building every single day,”