New England Patriots second-round rookie Gabe Jacas, a defensive starter during Saturday’s preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles, is seeing the field better after joining the team late during offseason workouts.
The outside linebacker’s first practice with New England was on Aug. 1 in a limited role. Knee and pre-draft hamstring injuries kept him unavailable through the spring, along with an unresolved rookie contract that wasn’t agreed upon until July 26.
Jacas sees his second preseason matchup
at Gillette Stadium as another learning experience, with the beginning of his rookie season in September soon approaching.
“It was a good night. Another game under my belt. Another game I can learn from. New opportunities,” Jacas said after the matchup. “[I’m] just grateful and blessed that I was out there, running around and having fun.”
Among the areas where the 22-year-old is learning to help himself develop as a player, identifying play designs at the NFL level is something he’s focused on.
“Just the little things,” Jacas said about what he’s been working on during his first two preseason contests. “First of all is alignment, hand placement [and] looking at backfield sets. You know, all the little things that not only my coach (Mike Smith) but also [Mike] Vrabel talks about. So, those things I can work on.”
The Illinois product concluded his Saturday night performance with four tackles and a quarterback hit on the Eagles’ backup Andy Dalton. On a second-down snap in the second quarter, Jacas immediately charged into the backfield after going unblocked, pressuring the veteran quarterback into an incompletion.
But while there were flashes of strong plays, rookie mistakes remained.
On the previous play, cornerback Kindle Vildor intercepted Dalton and returned the takeaway into the red zone; however, a roughing-the-passer call on Jacas wiped out the turnover.
“I think [he’s] just still inconsistent,” his head coach, Mike Vrabel, said about Jacas’ development after the game. “I think that the effort is certainly there. The willingness. He is a very coachable player. We are just putting a lot on him right now as far as special teams and covering kicks and playing on kick return. We have to be able to see what he can do and maybe what we feel like we can count on when the regular season comes.
“I think he will just continue to improve because he has that type of attitude, and he is willing, and I know he will get back to work real quick.”
Jacas was asked about the penalty, calling it a “learning lesson” for himself and something he needs to be careful of.
And because the Fort Pierce, FL, native began practicing late in the offseason, he missed crucial special teams reps that Vrabel believes are among the most important for young players to learn. Earlier in August, Vrabel spent extensive one-on-one time with the rookie working on punt protection drills.
The Patriots’ physical pass rusher noted his special teams play as an area of improvement from last week’s preseason matchup against the Indianapolis Colts.
“There are a lot of ebbs and flows of a professional football game,” Vrabel said about what he’s looking for in players fighting through adversity. “How can you handle making a mistake? How can you handle getting blocked? How can you handle having a good play and then coming back and being able to do it again? And how they bounce back, how they handle different situations. What they do in live action, I think, is really critical.”
