New England Patriots 2026 second-round draft selection Gabe Jacas was absent from Tuesday\u2019s mandatory minicamp practice. The Illinois product has yet to practice with the team this spring, previously already missing rookie minicamp as well as two weeks of OTA practices.<\/p>\n
Jacas also sat out the NFL Combine and Illinois\u2019 pro day due to a pre-draft hamstring injury, which Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel confirmed before practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t attribute it to anything other than he\u2019s not here, and that he\u2019s not under contract at this current time,\u201d Vrabel said on Jacas\u2019 absence. \u201cI don\u2019t want to say that there\u2019s a reason for it, other than that that\u2019s what it is right now \u2026 He had a procedure, and he\u2019s not under contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vrabel adds that he has not directly worked with Jacas \u201con the grass,\u201d but the two communicated and met numerous times before the Patriots selected him 55th overall in the second round of late April\u2019s NFL Draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t. Not one bit,\u201d Vrabel said. \u201c[I\u2019ve] been excited to work with the players here and have learned that there are only so many things that you can control. [I\u2019m] excited about the development of the guys in that room, the ones that have been here that are going into their second year, or the ones that we drafted, or the ones that we signed in the post-draft, or the ones that we signed in free agency.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited about Gabe, the person that he is, [his] play style, his production in college, and all that,\u201d Vrabel said. \u201cWhen that gets resolved, we\u2019ll have him in here, and we\u2019ll coach him. I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll find a way for him to help our football team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking at the depth chart, Jacas is poised to be a main contributor this season on the edge and potentially the rookie with the most responsibilities; however, the 22-year-old product still has yet to participate with the team or take mental reps on the sideline.<\/p>\n
New England\u2019s outside linebackers coach Mike Smith admits Jacas will have to catch up, but so will every new player.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, it would hurt anybody,\u201d Smith said about Jacas missing time. \u201cBut he is a smart kid, and when he gets here, we\u2019ll get rolling. I kind of stay away from whatever\u2019s going on with him right now. But if we\u2019re going to be honest, he does [need to catch up] a little bit, and that\u2019s just something as a coach that you have to adapt to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Veteran Harold Landry, who\u2019s still recovering from a procedure on his knee after an injury he sustained last season, was also absent. Still, it sounds like the team has a rehab plan in place that Landry is sticking to this offseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarold has played a lot of football,\u201d Vrabel said. \u201cThis is all part of everyone having a little different plan \u2026 So, he\u2019s heavily involved in the meetings and the workouts and in a leadership role. For him to take reps right now in the spring, I feel like [it] is unnecessary, and we\u2019ll just keep working to make sure he\u2019s ready to go when we need him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New England Patriots 2026 second-round draft selection Gabe Jacas was absent from Tuesday\u2019s mandatory minicamp practice. The Illinois…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[223497,138214,161703,280297,23433,349,99],"class_list":["post-695485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-new-england-patriots-draft","tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","tag-new-england-patriots-injuries","tag-new-england-patriots-offseason-coverage","tag-new-england-patriots-news","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}