The New England Patriots made a surprising decision by cutting starting safety Jabrill Peppers ahead of the 2025 season.
Peppers, who was selected 25th overall by the Cleveland Browns in the 2017 NFL Draft, spent time with the New York Giants and the Patriots during his career.
While Peppers' release was surprising, reports on Tuesday stated that the Pittsburgh Steelers were "expected" to sign him, per NFL Network's Mike Garafolo and Ian Rapoport.
After the release, Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel said there were "a lot of reasons" for making the move, but he admitted the scheme wasn't one of them.
"There's a lot of reasons. I wouldn't say that's — we're gonna try to do what's best for the team, and we got a lot of different schemes that we can run in all three phases," Vrabel said. "There's a lot that goes into it, and again, we're just trying to build towards Sunday here, and that's our focus. And again, that's a decision that we had to make. We wish the best for Jabrill."
Peppers played in 38 games in three years with the Patriots and has a total of 510 tackles with 5.5 sacks and seven interceptions throughout his NFL career.
During his college days at Michigan, Peppers was a superstar.
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In his final season in Ann Arbor in 2016, he contributed in all three phases of the game. On defense, he had 72 total tackles, including 16 for a loss, along with four sacks and an interception. He scored three rushing touchdowns on offense and also returned kicks, scoring a touchdown on a punt return. Peppers finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting behind Lamar Jackson (Louisville), Deshaun Watson (Clemson), Baker Mayfield (Oklahoma) and Dede Westbrook (Oklahoma).
His NFL career has been a bit up and down, but Peppers' time in New England featured some improved play, which made the release even more surprising.
Now, Peppers is headed to the Steelers with a safety room that has DeShon Elliott and Juan Thornhill as the starters.
NFL insider Jordan Schultz also reported that Elliott will miss a "few weeks" with an MCL sprain, so Peppers could see snaps right away.