Patriots OL Morgan Moses
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Patriots OL Morgan Moses
It is very possible that the two most important players on the 2025 Patriots—after quarterback Drake Maye, of course—are two new guys who are coming to the team from very different directions. One is right tackle Morgan Moses, the 34-year-old veteran of 11 NFL seasons, who has been with three different teams and signed a three-year, $24 million contract in free agency. The other is left tackle Will Campbell, the rookie from LSU who was the No. 4 overall pick in this year’s draft.
Fact is, no matter how well the other additions to the offense work out, and no matter how much progress Maye shows in 2025, this team’s ability to truly establish itself as a playoff threat will likely come down to how well the team improves at the line of scrimmage.
The Patriots went from No. 20 in PFF’s offensive line rankings in 2023 to No. 32 in 2024. Bad to worse. So, the performance of the team’s edge blockers will go a long way toward turning around a franchise that has gone 4-13 in each of its last two seasons.
Will Campbell Getting Advice From Morgan Moses
Moses, for one, knows that. And he knows he was brought to New England not just for his blocking prowess, but also for his ability to be a mentor to the team’s younger players. To an extent, there’s some hope he can reach 2022 first-round pick Cole Strange and help him get his career back on track after two injury-wracked seasons.
But the big job is Campbell. So far, Campbell said, he and Moses have bonded.
“I think whenever you’re a rookie at any position you look for a guy that you know, you can come in and he has done it the right way since he has been in the league, proven himself and that is a great person you can latch on to,” Campbell said. “He has been great for me and all the guys in the room. And that goes for guys like Garrett (Bradbury) and Big Mike (Onwenu), too. We have a lot of guys who have played a lot of football in the room.”
Patriots Line Has a Hole
Of course, it is difficult to size up linemen in the spring portion of offseason practices—players are not wearing pads, after all, and how do you evaluate linemen who can’t hit?
The spot next to Campbell, left guard, remains an open question mark for the Patriots, as the team tries to fill that spot. Strange is the early favorite, but is no shoo-in to win the job.
“We’ll be able to evaluate the linemen once we get to training camp,” coach Mike Vrabel told reporters last week at minicamp. “We’re moving a lot of guys through there. We’ll have to make a lot of those decisions and determinations once we get to training camp and there’s pads and start stacking some days together. This is purely a passing camp. I don’t know if we get a full evaluation without shoulder pads on as an offensive lineman.”