The New England Patriots’ third and final practice of mandatory minicamp on Thursday was originally scheduled to run until around 2:50 p.m. ET. However, with 20 minutes left, head coach Mike Vrabel called off the session.
What happened? Drake Maye, the Patriots’ starting quarterback and most important player, remained on the ground after getting bumped into by pass rusher Bradyn Swinson.
The collision was not overly violent and Maye got back up fairly quickly, eventually finishing practice with his
typical routine. However, it also was an unfortunate moment for a young defender who had received plenty of praise from his head coach just two hours earlier.
“I think he improved over the course of last season, and certainly has taken to that early on in the spring and what we have been able to do,” Vrabel said about Swinson ahead of Thursday’s practice. “I’m excited about what he’ll be able to do and excited to see him in training camp.”
Swinson joined the Patriots as a fifth-round selection in the 2025 NFL Draft, but despite showing some flashes of promising play in training camp and preseason eventually ended up missing out on the 53-man roster. But while he therefore had to start his career on New England’s practice squad, he eventually made his way to the active team by mid-November — a move largely intended to prevent other teams from poaching him.
Since then, he has shown some steady improvement behind the scenes. And when he returned to Gillette Stadium for the offseason workout program, Vrabel noticed a player willing to put the work in to secure a job on the team.
“He came back in shape, came back ready to go,” Vrabel said. “I think he realized what professional football is after camp, where he was and what his role was, and he realized that maybe he wants a different role. I think he’s been conscientious with special teams. Sometimes you get these defensive ends that come in from college that are outside linebackers, and they haven’t done a lot of special teams. That’s a critical element. We need those players to be good on special teams for us.”
Swinson’s position coach, Mike Smith, expressed a similar sentiment.
“Our big message today in the room — I’ve always left it on the last day — is consistency,” Smith explained. “There’s so many different ways you can look at that to our daily routine, the weight room, the diet, nutrition, all that stuff. Being all in on everything. Being consistent with that. Being consistent with our drills. To me, that’s what he’s been doing this spring. His body’s changed. He’s gotten stronger. It’s his second year, and I think that’s a big thing for him. He is another one who had a good spring.”
Swinson was given limited opportunities to showcase his talents after his rookie promotion, but most of those actually came on special teams. In his four games between the regular season and playoffs, he played 31 kicking game snaps compared to 27 on defense.
Listening to Vrabel, the kicking game might again be Swinson’s key to a role on the team.
“Young players that work hard and have a full offseason to train, sometimes that’s a great window of opportunity for a guy that is 22, 23 years old, to make some significant improvement in their speed, in their strength, explosion,” Vrabel said on Tuesday.
“I think [Swinson and Elijah Ponder] are kind of in the same category. I think Bradyn has done a nice job of working hard in the offseason, knowing what it is that we are looking for, and what he is going to need to do to help himself and help our football team.”
One part of that is not colliding with the franchise quarterback during an offseason session in June, but Swinson probably knows that now. The other no less important part, meanwhile, is staying consistent, committed, and on the trajectory he put himself on.
“It’s being a professional. It’s staying consistent with what you do,” said Smith. “Continue to learn, continue to be bought in on everything that we do. When you can do that, you become smart and understand what offenses are trying to do to us.”
