Don’t go looking for the next Dont’a Hightower in the 2022 NFL draft. You won’t find him. For that matter, you’d be wasting your time looking for another Jamie Collins or Tedy Bruschi or Jerod Mayo.
There are draft prospects whose playing styles resemble those former Patriots linebackers. It’s just that those prospects weigh roughly 25 pounds less than the previous greats in New England. For years, the Patriots would put a 6-foot-1 and 250-pound athlete at inside linebacker. And often, they’d flank those inside backers with edge players who are 6-foot-3 and 260 pounds.
“There’s not as many of those big linebackers. They just — they don’t exist,” Patriots director of player personnel Matt Groh said last week during a pre-draft videoconference.
Utah linebacker Devin Lloyd, arguably the top linebacker in the NFL draft, plays a similar style to Collins. They’re both rangy and fast. Because Lloyd played receiver before moving to linebacker, he makes freakish plays with his hands that’ll remind Patriots fans of Collins. But also, because Lloyd played receiver, he still weighs just 235 pounds — much smaller than Collins, who played between 255 and 260 pounds in New England.
The same is true of Georgia linebacker Nakobi Dean, who’s the other candidate to be LB1 in this year’s draft. Dean plays inside linebacker at 6-foot and 225 pounds — lighter than Mayo (6-foot-1, 250 pounds) and Hightower (6-foot-3, 260 pounds).
For years, coach and general manager Bill Belichick sought out a certain type of linebacker, often drafting players with similar measurables. But Groh indicated that’s likely going to have to change in the coming years.
“Colleges want them smaller because they’ve got to be able to adapt to the college game,” Groh said. “So, you can’t just create these guys out of thin air and so it’s with all the positions, it’s what the college game provides us. We have to just take what they are going to give us from year to year. One year there might be a couple, high-level Sam linebackers and other years there might not be any. … So, it’s really just as simple as there are not a lot of those guys in college anymore, so you’re not going to see a lot of those guys in the NFL anymore.”
New England has so far elected not to re-sign Hightower in free agency. Instead, the Patriots traded for inside linebacker Mack Wilson (6-foot-1, 235 pounds) and retained Ja’Whaun Bentley (6-foot-2, 255 pounds) in free agency. They will rejoin a group that includes Raekwon McMillan (6-foot-2, 240 pounds) and Cameron McGrone (6-foot-1, 235), among others.
It will be fascinating to see whether the Patriots add another linebacker in the draft. Will an incoming draft prospect fit their past prototype? Or is New England adapting to college football’s new direction?
