The 2025 NFL season could be an exciting one for the New England Patriots. The team wrapped up its second straight four-win season in 2024, but Drake Maye showed flashes of brilliance. Now, the Patriots have surrounded him with a far better supporting cast, giving fans reason to believe that real improvements will be made from Maye and the team in 2025.
What Patriots fans really want to see is that the team's rookies have strong beginnings to their NFL careers. Will Campbell is a guy Patriots fans hope will protect Maye's blind side for a long time. Kyle Williams is an exciting receiver Patriots fans hope will catch hundreds of Maye's passes over the years. TreVeyon Henderson has a chance to take control of the backfield as early as this season.
While there are plenty of rookies worth getting excited about, particularly on the offensive side of the ball, there's a chance that not every rookie will make the team's Week 1 roster. Marcus Bryant appears to be on the roster bubble heading into training camp, and there's every chance he comes up short in his quest to make the roster.
Patriots might end up wasting a draft pick on Marcus Bryant
The Patriots used a seventh-round pick to select Bryant, an offensive tackle out of SMU, in the 2025 NFL Draft. Obviously, seventh-round picks don't have a ton of value, but if the Patriots weren't excited by the Bryant selection, they would've either taken someone else or traded the selection. They selected him envisioning a world in which he makes the team, which he might do, but he's in a crowded offensive line room.
The aforementioned Campbell is the team's projected left tackle, and there's every reason to believe that 11-year veteran Morgan Moses will be the right tackle. This only leaves room for Bryant to make the team as a backup. Frankly, that makes sense for a seventh-round pick, but it also leaves little margin for error.
Caedan Wallace won't start, but the Patriots used a third-round pick to select him in last year's NFL Draft. The odds of them cutting him after just one year are incredibly slim, and he's an offensive tackle. Given the role that Vederian Lowe has played in New England in each of the last two years, there's every reason to believe he'll make the team as well. If both Wallace and Lowe make the team, where is there room for Bryant?
The Patriots might get creative and find a way to fit all three of these offensive tackles into reserve roles. However, assuming they want Sidy Sow, a player who has appeared in 27 games in the past two seasons, to make the team, alongside Jared Wilson, a third-round pick from the 2025 NFL Draft, there isn't exactly room to get super creative either.
Injuries can change anything, as can Bryant putting on a show in training camp and/or the preseason, but barring those things occurring, he might be on the outside looking in when it comes to making the Week 1 roster.