![\"Kevin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2218663548-e1754834784550.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Kevin Byard III of the Chicago Bears.<\/p>\n
The New England Patriots<\/a> did not sign Kevin Byard<\/a> to reward him for something he accomplished several years ago.<\/p>\n They gave the veteran safety a one-year, $9 million contract after he led the NFL<\/a> with seven interceptions and earned first-team All-Pro honors during the 2025 season.<\/p>\n His production remained among the best at his position, even as he moved closer to his 33rd birthday.<\/p>\n So what\u2019s the deal with his absence from ESPN\u2019s ranking of the NFL\u2019s top 10 safeties for 2026<\/a>?<\/p>\n The survey of league executives, coaches and scouts placed younger stars at the top while leaving one of the previous season\u2019s two first-team All-Pro safeties outside the group in the \u201calso receiving votes\u201d section.<\/p>\n The ranking appears to be a bet on what happens next rather than a reflection of what Byard just accomplished.<\/p>\n But New England made the opposite bet when it added him to a secondary that already entered the offseason as one of the roster\u2019s strengths.<\/p>\n Byard 2025 Production Makes Omission Difficult to Defend<\/p>\n Byard started all 17 games for the Chicago Bears<\/a> and finished with 93 tackles, eight passes defensed and seven interceptions.<\/p>\n The interception total led the league and matched the second-highest mark of his career, trailing only the eight he recorded in 2017.<\/p>\n The Associated Press<\/a> selected Byard as one of its two first-team All-Pro safeties. The other was Kyle Hamilton<\/a>, who ranked No. 1 in ESPN\u2019s survey.<\/p>\n Byard\u2019s omission created an unusual split between two prominent evaluations released only months apart.<\/p>\n His season also showed that the ball production wasn\u2019t confined to a short hot streak.<\/p>\n Byard intercepted passes in six games and picked off two in Chicago\u2019s September victory over the Las Vegas Raiders<\/a>. His seventh came in the regular-season finale against the Detroit Lions<\/a>.<\/p>\n The performance continued a career built around taking the ball away.<\/p>\n Byard has 36 interceptions in 164 regular-season games<\/a>, with at least four picks in six different seasons. He has twice led the league in interceptions and earned first-team All-Pro honors three times.<\/p>\n Byard is coming off one of the best seasons of his career, rather than attempting to recreate output that disappeared several years ago.<\/p>\n Patriots Are Betting Byard Can Outrun Age Concerns<\/p>\n The clearest explanation for the ESPN omission is age.<\/p>\n Byard turns 33 on Aug. 17, leaving evaluators to decide whether his 2025 season represented another elite year or the final peak before a decline.<\/p>\n Rankings for the upcoming season naturally include projection, and older defensive backs rarely receive the same benefit of the doubt as players entering their primes.<\/p>\n Additionally, Pro Football Focus gave him a 75.4 overall grade<\/a>, which ranked 14th among safeties, so not among the 10 best.<\/p>\n The Patriots accepted the age risk with a short-term contract.<\/p>\n Byard also reunites with Mike Vrabel, who coached him for five-plus seasons with Tennessee.<\/p>\n During their five full seasons together from 2018 through 2022, Byard recorded 19 interceptions and earned first-team All-Pro honors in 2021.<\/p>\n That history gives New England a clear idea of what it is adding.<\/p>\n Byard brings range and anticipation to a defense that expects to contend immediately.<\/p>\n He also adds another proven voice around Christian Gonzalez<\/a> and Craig Woodson<\/a>, two younger defensive backs expected to hold major roles.<\/p>\n The one-year structure protects the Patriots if age catches up with him.<\/p>\n And if his ball production carries into 2026, his contract would look like a steal, heavily defying the ESPN rankings that excluded him.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tDuncan Day<\/a> is a sports contributor for Heavy. He has covered NFL, NBA, hockey and soccer for various outlets, including NBC Sports, Boston.com, USA TODAY, Forbes, Bleacher Report, The Dallas Morning News and more. More about Duncan Day<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Kevin Byard III of the Chicago Bears. The New England Patriots did not sign Kevin Byard to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-804000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}