When a new coaching administration takes charge, as in New England under the Patriots' new Head Coach Mike Vrabel, changes are to be expected. In Vrabel's case, major changes on both offense and defense to right a ship that had gone aground were required.
On offense, few positions were safe from a major rebuild. The 2024 offense, led by rookie quarterback Drake Maye, whose development was mishandled from the outset, couldn't score touchdowns. No surprise there. They "boasted" arguably the worst offensive line (which gave up 52 sacks) and among the worst wide receiving corps in the NFL. Vrabel began a significant rebuild.
Yet, while offense and its struggles garnered most of the attention, Vrabel is a defensive coach, and he set about to remake the defense to meet his goals. That meant players had to go, and others had to be brought in, and he did so in significant numbers. Starters were sent packing, and new, mainly smaller and faster playmaking types were added. The difference will be stark.
The Patriots' new defensive staff has demoted Keion White this offseason
Pats Pulpit's Bernd Buchmasser wrote about a Patriots' defensive player and a good one being demoted to a backup role, and it should have raised eyebrows all over Patriots Nation.
"One of the themes of the New England Patriots’ 2025 training camp thus far is established veterans losing starting roles... Could Keion White be the latest to fall victim to this process? Based on this week’s practices that might indeed be the case. Typically lining up as a starting edge opposite Harold Landry earlier in training camp, White found himself relegated to second-string behind K’Lavon Chaisson. It remains to be seen whether the move is temporary or permanent, but it was in itself a noteworthy development given White’s supposed game-wrecking abilities as well as Strange and Dugger both seemingly falling out of favor before him."
Keion White has been a promising player since he arrived in Foxborough as a second-round pick by Bill Belichick in 2023. He's entering just his third year. Yet, for all the promise, he has underachieved. At 6'5" and 285 pounds, White has prototypical size for a down defensive end in a two-gap system or as a defensive tackle in any system.
For his first two years in the league, White was mostly shifted between the edge as a down end or a stand-up edge. He's decent but not great at either position. Yet, under both Belichick and Mayo, for far too many plays, he was used as an outside stand-up rusher, down end, or even dropped into coverage. He's just average at any of those positions.
White has yet to make the progress he should have in his first two seasons, and hopefully, his "demotion" by Vrabel and Defensive Coordinator Terrell Williams now only signals that they have figured out exactly where he should be playing. He's too good a talent to sit.
Keion White is a pocket-collapsing menace inside
White has played a lot of snaps outside in various configurations on the Patriots' defensive line, including foolishly dropping a player his size into coverage. Defenses where big defensive linemen drop into coverage have passed into NFL history. Yet, both Belichick by choice and Mayo, probably more by necessity, deployed White outside and at times in coverage.
The hope is that, being astute, defensive-minded coaches, Vrabel and Williams have finally ascertained what any observer who looked at White's film might have, that Keion White is a defensive tackle who is a pocket-collapsing menace on any given down. And that is not even the whole story.
In addition to White, Vrabel has the luxury of having two other similarly talented, Pro-Bowl-level pocket-collapsing defensive tackles at his disposal. One is Christian Barmore, who, before his unfortunate health issue, destroyed NFL offenses in 2023 with 8.5 sacks. The other is 2024 Super Bowl hero, Milton Williams, who is similarly proficient at making pockets disappear.
It's unclear what Vrabel's "demotion" of White to a backup edge means long-term. Frankly, it's not unexpected. Keion White is not and has never been an NFL "edge" player. His uber-talent is playing inside as a tackle in a gap, destroying one or two offensive linemen and the pocket in the process.
If this is the true reason White has been "demoted", Patriot Nation should be gleeful. It will signal that, finally, after two years of silly trial and error, a Patriots' coaching staff has finally recognized where one of their most talented yet underrated defensive players should play. That's a very positive sign.