Pats Pulpit
The New England Patriots have 91 players on their current roster, and 24 of them are listed at 300 pounds or more. Out of those 24, seven are playing along the defensive line. And of those seven, one stands out as the heaviest defender on the team: undrafted rookie Travis Shaw.
His size is his defining attribute heading into his first NFL training camp, and it could be why he might be a dark horse candidate to end up on the 53-man team come the regular season.
Name: Travis Shaw
Position: Defensive tackle/Interior defensive line
Jersey number: 62
Opening day age: 22 (12/1/2003)
Measurements: 6’5”, 335 lbs, 9 3/8” hand size, 33 1/8” arm length, 80” wingspan, 5.28s 40-yard dash, 8.15s 33-cone drill, 5.08s short shuttle, 26 1/2” vertical jump, 8’3” broad jump, 3.19 Relative Athletic Score
NFL: New England Patriots (2026-) | College: North Carolina (2022-24), Texas (2025)
A five-star recruit and top-five high school player in the nation, Shaw received a ton of interest coming out of Grimsley High in Greensboro, NC. Even though more than a dozen scholarship offers came his way including from high-profile schools like Alabama, Clemson and USC, he opted to stay home and ultimately committed to play college football at North Carolina.
Shaw spent three years with the Tar Heels, playing 37 games with no starts and registering 55 tackles as well as a pair of fumble recoveries. Toward the tail end of his junior campaign (i.e. before ex-Patriots head coach Bill Belichick’s arrival), however, he entered the transfer portal and moved to Texas as a four-star prospect at the time. In one season as a Longhorn, he added 13 more games and his first career start to his résumé.
Despite his former five-star status and lofty projections at the start of his college career, Shaw went unselected in the 2026 NFL Draft. He only joined the Patriots as a free agent following a successful rookie minicamp workout.
Strengths: Checking in at 6-foot-5 and 335 pounds, Shaw is a massive human being capable of commanding double teams at the line of scrimmage and playing gap control in a two-gap scheme. He uses his big arms to create a powerful initial punch and has the reach to drag ball carriers down even while engaged. He plays with a firm anchor as a run defender and when left on an island is capable of collapsing the pocket up the middle in pass rush situations. Despite his size, he is fairly light on his feet and can move well laterally and as a pursuit player.
Weaknesses: Shaw has failed to live up to the hype he received coming out of high school, in parts because he never took the next step as a pass rusher: he registered only eight pressures on 402 pass rush snaps in college (2.0%) and has not a single sack to his name. His pass rush moves as a general are rudimentary, and he...
