FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Quick-hit thoughts and notes around the New England Patriots and NFL:
1. Jacas report: When considering what the Patriots can expect from edge defender Gabe Jacas, their second-round pick from University of Illinois, college coach Aaron Henry shares a story from the first time he met him.
Henry was on a recruiting visit to Fort Pierce Central High School (Florida). He had liked Jacas' football film and estimated him to be about 6 feet tall based on that, so the initial introduction took him by surprise.
"He walks around the corner, has on a muscle shirt tank top, and I couldn't call our head coach fast enough to say, 'We need to get everyone on a plane here immediately!'" said Henry, who at the time was Illinois defensive backs coach and would later become defensive coordinator.
"He was every bit of 6-3 and probably 235-240 [pounds] at the time. Rocked up, and ... baby-faced."
Henry visited a wrestling practice later in the day.
"It was like Bikram yoga -- a little-bitty room, blazing hot, 16 different wrestlers on his high school team and for three hours, he wrestled his brother, coach and a teammate. Nonstop. Like 2-on-1 for three hours. It was insane," Henry said. "I knew at that moment, this kid is a little bit different."
Henry was thrilled when Jacas (pronounced ACK-iss) later flipped his commitment from Tulane to Illinois. And because of what Henry saw that first day, few were surprised to see how Jacas' collegiate career (2022-25) unfolded -- 50 games played, 183 tackles, 27 sacks and seven forced fumbles.
"I literally knew the first two weeks, he was going to be an NFL player. There was no doubt in my mind," Illinois head coach Bret Bielema said this week.
Jacas' backstory and production appealed to the Patriots, who hoped to come out of the 2026 NFL draft with a high-end edge prospect to slot behind veteran starters Dre'Mont Jones and Harold Landry III. But there was doubt Jacas would last to the 63rd pick, which was the team's next selection after landing Utah offensive tackle Caleb Lomu in the first round (No. 28).
So the Patriots traded fourth- and sixth-round picks to the Los Angeles Chargers to move from No. 63 to No. 55 for Jacas.
"The play style is what we're all about," Patriots executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf said. "Toughness, determination, grit. He's super physical."
Henry added that the Patriots will soon discover Jacas, 21, has a relentless work ethic, which he believes is a credit to his mother Paula Henry. On Henry's first recruiting visit to see Jacas, he also visited Paula, a registered nurse, at her workplace.
"If you meet his mom, you understand why he works like that. She is a wonderful one. It's a testament to how he was raised," he said.
When Bielema visited Florida to recruit Jacas, he recalled walking into their home and feeling a community behind him.
"There were 30 people there, everybody from his life," he said. "She made all this Jamaican food and then she gave a prayer about her son. Literally, I was crying. Everybody was crying. I walked out of the home, and I remember sitting down with my coaches and saying, 'That kid can't help but be great.'"
Henry puts Jacas in the same category as J.J. Watt, whom he played alongside at the University of Wisconsin, in terms of how much time he spent at the facility. He called it a wrestler's mentality (Jacas was a two-time state champion in high school) and shared that coaches used to say of Jacas: "The dude works like a walk-on."
As for how Henry utilized Jacas within Illinois' scheme, he keeps it simple.
"Gabe is best when he's going forward. From the time he was a freshman, to the time he was a senior, the more we were able to send him forward the more productive he was," he said, noting that meant Jacas was in a two-point stance on the edge most of the time, and occasionally would move inside.
"He has very heavy hands. When he grabs you and gets a hold of you, you're going for a ride."
Bielema put together tape for NFL scouts from Illinois' game against Michigan in 2024, showing six Jacas rushes in which he aligned in five different spots against five different Wolverines. Bielema said it showed Jacas' game plan against different players (e.g. swiping against a leaning tackle, using a long-arm technique to feature power, etc.), which he felt was reflective of how Bill Belichick used to teach when he was a member of his Patriots coaching staff (2018-19).
Illinois often played a "bear" front, with the center and guards covered, with Henry -- who moved on to become Notre Dame's defensive coordinator this year -- trying to find ways to isolate Jacas to create havoc.
"He dropped in coverage a couple times, should have had a couple interceptions he missed out on, but I started to learn relatively fast he was better at rushing than dropping," he said.
"I knew that in college football that he was going to have the advantage 90-95% of the time, no matter who he was lined up against. He's a very dynamic pass rusher."
2. Lomu spotlight: Lomu (No. 28) and the rest of the rookie class are scheduled to arrive in town Thursday for the official start of the team's rookie minicamp. So the expectation is for Lomu's introduction/ceremonial picture on Thursday, with on-field work beginning Friday.
Media members are scheduled to watch practice Saturday. It will be Lomu's first trip to New England, as he had been scheduled to come to town before the draft, but the team canceled the visit because it didn't think it would be in position to draft him.
"I haven't been to much of the East Coast at all," Lomu, an Arizona native, said during the draft. "I'm excited to experience it."
3. "Family meetings": Offensive lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker, who signed a three-year, $42 million deal in New England after spending his first five NFL seasons with the New York Jets, said one notable part of the voluntary offseason program for him has been "family meetings."
He described them as groups in which players are paired with those who don't play their position, and they talk about where they're from, upbringings, what they believe in, etc.
Vera-Tucker shared his outside viewpoint that the 2025 Patriots excelled, in part, because of the connection between players, and the "family meetings" are a new wrinkle the 2026 team hopes produces similar connections.
4. Onwenu follow-up: Starting right guard Mike Onwenu was back in Foxborough last week for the second week of the voluntary offseason program, as he arrived behind most of his teammates.
Onwenu, who enters the final year of his contract and is the team's longest-tenured player (since 2020), has a $200,000 workout bonus in his deal that calls for him to earn a base salary of $16 million (with a $25 million salary cap charge).
5. Why five? Outside linebacker Dre'Mont Jones said he chose to wear No. 5 in New England after signing a three-year, $39.5 million contract for a simple reason -- "My birthday is Jan. 5, I saw 5 was open, and 5 is one of my favorite numbers."
Jones' prior numbers in the NFL: 93 in Denver, 55 in Seattle, 45 in Tennessee and 41 in Baltimore.
The last player to wear No. 5 in New England was Jabrill Peppers from 2023 to 2024.
6. Lomu trade: The Patriots' trade with the Bills to move up to No. 28 and select Lomu almost wasn't an option for them. The Bills initially traded down from 26 to 28, then took the Patriots' deal to move down to 31, which netted them a fourth-round pick (No. 125, UConn WR Skyler Bell), before trading down again from 31 to 35.
But Bills general manager Brandon Beane told Sirius XM NFL Radio that he was also considering a different trade option to go directly from 26 to the same range as 35, before ultimately electing for the three individual trade-downs for strategic reasons.
Had he chosen otherwise, the Patriots might have been boxed out on moving up for Lomu.
7. Morton's roots: Texas Tech quarterback Behren Morton, whom the Patriots selected in the seventh round (No. 234) as the top choice to fill the No. 3 spot on the depth chart, mentioned his small-town roots in Eastland, Texas.
How small?
Morton's graduating class in 2020 had 97 students. That is actually on the higher side for Eastland, whose graduating class this year has 54 students.
In a related note, Morton is the 11th quarterback selected by the Patriots since 2010, which is the most of any team in the NFL over that span.
8. Gronk's favorite: Rob Gronkowski, who was voted by fans as the 2026 inductee to the Patriots Hall of Fame, said his most memorable non-Super Bowl game came against the host Steelers on Dec. 17, 2017.
The reason was because of what he described as his "beast-mode moment" on a late 77-yard game-winning drive to help the Patriots record a thrilling 27-24 victory in a battle of top AFC teams. That included three straight completions to him (26, 26, 17 yards), a block to spring running back Dion Lewis for the game-winning 8-yard TD with one minute remaining and then catching a 2-point conversion on a fade from Tom Brady.
It was five straight plays of dominance from Gronkowski, an example of what happened when he would "catch on fire," and what he said was a "drive I'll remember for [the rest of] my life."
9. Next phase: In addition to rookies arriving, this is a notable week for the Patriots as they transition to the second phase of their voluntary offseason program, which means coaches can now instruct individual drills.
Linebacker Robert Spillane acknowledged the change, saying, "We'll be back in cleats on the field and excited about that."
And that also will highlight some jersey changes, such as receiver Kyle Williams switching from 18 to 8.
10. Did You Know: With the Patriots selecting Lomu (No. 28) after the Browns picked offensive tackle Spencer Fano (No. 9), it marks the first time in the common draft era that Utah has had multiple first-round picks in the same year.