Pats Pulpit
Despite the team as a whole struggling yet again, Keion White entered 2025 on the upswing. He had served as a starter for the New England Patriots the previous season and continued developing into a disruptive and versatile member of their defensive line.
However, his career ended up hitting a road block in 2025. The new defensive scheme installed under head coach Mike Vrabel moved him to the outside, and he ultimately ended up losing his starting spot and saw his playing time share drop from 74% to 40% in five games.
Then, after being made a healthy scratch against the Cleveland Browns in Week 8, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers. White is holding no grudge over the end to his Patriots tenure, but he did admit some frustration over his usage by the team.
“As a competitor you always want to play as much as possible. If it was up to me I’d be on the field all 80 snaps, so it’s always going to be frustrating not being out there,” he told the media after his arrival in the Bay Area on Thursday. “But you also got to understand that everything fits inside the scheme. And so, I was just trying to play my role.”
White played on the outside on 117 of his 122 snaps under Vrabel this year, a share of almost 96%. For comparison, his first two seasons with head coaches Bill Belichick and Jerod Mayo — both running a similar scheme — saw him align as an edge on 58% and 68% of reps, respectively.
“Rushing from the inside, that’s kind of what I feel like I do best,” White said on Thursday while also admitting that he himself could have been better in his new role. “No knock to the guys over there — they had a system where I was outside. I could have been better on the outside rushing and everything like that, and just roll with what I could have done better.”
Ultimately, however, the Patriots decided that trading the former second-round draft pick was the best course of action for the team. In return for him and a 2026 seventh-round selection they got a sixth-rounder that same year back; both picks are conditional and therefore subject to change should a certain set of as-of-yet-unreported parameters be met.
As for White himself, he is just trying to take the experience one day at a time.
“I kind of just roll with the punches,” he said. “Just one thing that being under Bill for a year taught you was you just take every day for what it is and you never really expect anything from tomorrow. So, I just go one day at a time and and go where I’m supposed to be at.”
