New England Patriots
“I think that it needs to be better.”
Gabe Jacas is expected to boost New England’s pass-rushing corps this season. (David L Ryan/Globe Staff)
August 17, 2026 | 2:54 PM
3 minutes to read
FOXBOROUGH — Gabe Jacas had a short runway en route to meaningful snaps this summer, with the 2026 second-round pick missing all of OTAs, mandatory minicamp, and the start of training camp amid an extended contract stalemate and offseason knee surgery.
As such, it should come as no surprise that the former Illinois edge rusher had an up-and-down performance during Thursday’s preseason opener against the Indianapolis Colts.
Those growing pains are to be expected for any rookie at this juncture of the NFL calendar, especially one who has had little time to get acclimated to the pro ranks.
But speaking on Monday, Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel didn’t sugarcoat what he saw from Jacas — a player who might have to be counted on heavily this year on a thin pass-rushing grouping.
“Okay,” Vrabel said of Jacas’s performance. “I think that it needs to be better.”
There was both good and bad to draw from Jacas’s performance during New England’s eventual 13-13 draw against Indianapolis at Gillette Stadium.
The 22-year-old Jacas wasn’t credited with a sack. Still, his bull rush from the right side might have led to the first of four Colts turnovers on Thursday — with Indy QB Anthony Richardson delivering a pass under duress that was bobbled and eventually picked off by Patriots CB Kindle Vildor.
Jacas finished with five total tackles on Thursday, including a few stops on special teams. His explosiveness off the line was noticeable, especially in shedding initial blocks and setting the edge.
But Jacas can’t just rely on his physical tools to consistently earn snaps in New England, with the rookie burned a few times on Thursday due to issues with play recognition. He was often a liability during read-option plays and screens to his side of the field, with Richardson doing most of his damage on Thursday when running in his direction.
Wasn’t a perfect debut for #Patriots rookie Gabe Jacas but thought we saw the twitched-up movements to slip around blocks and power to set a sturdy edge.
Jacas also might’ve affected Richardson by bull-rushing the right tackle in the Colts QB’s lap. pic.twitter.com/J4Use3cntg
— Evan Lazar (@ezlazar) August 14, 2026
In the middle of Thursday’s game, Vrabel challenged Jacas after he didn’t like the effort he showcased on a kickoff.
“I didn’t expect that the guy who was blocking him to be able to block him, and then I challenged him, and he came up with a tackle on the kickoff,” Vrabel said after Thursday’s game. “So that was a positive, and then we’ll just keep coaching him just like the rest of the guys.”
“He was just like, ‘I’m tired of seeing you getting blocked,’” Jacas noted postgame. “So, I was like, ‘[expletive], I’m not going to get blocked.’ So that’s what I did. Vrabel demands the best out of his players, so that’s what he did.”
Even with those missteps, Vrabel added on Monday that he was impressed with how Jacas fared during Saturday’s practice in the practice fields behind Gillette Stadium.
“It was better on Saturday than it was in the game,” Vrabel noted. “We pointed some things out to him in the game, and I felt it was really cool of him to be able to make those corrections and look at some of the body positions that we feel like he should be in, and he was really conscious of those, and I saw those things translate in just a quick, short amount of time from the meeting after the game to Saturday’s practice.”
The Patriots will need to be patient with Jacas, given his importance on a Patriots pass-rushing personnel that doesn’t exactly boast a ton of proven talent.
Beyond free-agent pickup Dre’Mont Jones, the Patriots are counting on a rookie like Jacas and second-year players like Bradyn Swinson and Elijah Ponder to step up — especially with veteran Harold Landry still on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list due to a lingering knee injury.
Getting after the quarterback was one of the top flaws on an otherwise stout Patriots defense last season. New England generated just 35.0 sacks in 2025, with only five teams posting fewer sacks last year.
Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.
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