The New England Patriots need someone who can get after the opposing quarterback...
Harold Landry III and K'Lavon Chaisson were fine last season, but getting 16.0 sacks from your top two pass-rushers just wasn't enough -- and definitely won't be moving forward now that there is uncertainty facing the future of both of those players at One Patriot Place.
Landry battled to stay healthy all season, and ended up recording just one quarterback hit across three playoff appearances -- missing three games down the stretch of the regular season and into the postseason. Chaisson stepped up in his partner's absence, but will be an unrestricted free agent and is expected to try and cash in on his career year.
Patriots executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf acknowledged that he needed to find more production from that unit moving forward during his press conference at the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine on Tuesday.
"I just think that being able to affect the quarterback is tremendously important, whether that's from the interior or on the exterior," "I know a lot of quarterbacks, just from talking with people around the league, a lot of quarterbacks are worried about the interior pressure because you can’t step up…
“I think this draft offers a lot of depth at varying areas, edge being one of them. I think it’s a fairly deep class at that position, and obviously an area of need for our team, so it matches up nicely.”
LIVE: Eliot Wolf from the NFL Combine https://t.co/3a4NTNZm0Y
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) February 24, 2026
It's good timing, indeed.
New England should be in position to take advantage of the "middle class" in the 2026 NFL Draft, as it currently possesses four picks in the second, third and fourth rounds and can attack an extremely deep class of pass-rushers that should see some very good players drop -- Missouri's Zion Young, Texas Tech's Romello Height, Penn State's Dani Dennis-Sutton, Ohio State's Caden Curry, etc.
If they can marry one of those players with a big-time trade/free agent acquisition, we could see an entirely new (and improved) group entering next season,
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