Pats Pulpit
The Patriots are parting ways with another longtime team captain.
Just three weeks after releasing their longest-tenured offensive player, David Andrews, the New England Patriots have done the same to their longest-tenured defender. Linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley, who spent the last seven seasons with the club, will be released after seven seasons.
Let’s analyze what the move means for the team.
All NFL draft picks are coin flips to a degree, something that is especially true in final few rounds. The Patriots turning Bentley from fifth-round draft pick to multi-year starter and team captain therefore goes in the books as a major win for the team and its scouting department.
Arriving in New England after a four-year career at Purdue, the 143rd overall selection in the 2018 draft had a rough start. He did show promise as a rookie but suffered a season-ending bicep injury in only his third game. Bentley was back on the field the next year, but played only a quarter of defensive snaps.
From 2020 on, however, he became a mainstay at the second level of the defense. Before suffering a season-ending pectoral tear last September, he had appeared in a combined 85 regular season and playoff games and was voted a captain on four occasions. In addition, Bentley also served as a primary on-field signal caller following Devin McCourty’s retirement in 2023.
Not bad for a fifth-round draft pick.
Before the calendar even turns to April, the Patriots have waived goodbye to four of their original six captains from a year ago. Deatrich Wise Jr. and Jacoby Brissett signed free agency deals with the Washington Commanders and Arizona Cardinals, respectively, while the aforementioned David Andrews was released after 10 seasons with the club.
Now, Bentley is gone as well — and with him another well-established leader. This leaves only two of those six captains: Jabrill Peppers, whose captaincy was removed following an in-season arrest, and long snapper Joe Cardona.
The Patriots’ replacement captains Kyle Dugger and Hunter Henry are still with the team, but they can be seen as remnants of what increasingly is becoming a bygone era. New head coach Mike Vrabel is fully transforming this team, and holdovers from the dynasty era such as Bentley are no longer the core parts of the culture they once were.
And then, there was one: the Patriots are now down to only one player who helped bring a Super Bowl to New England. The aforementioned Joe Cardona, himself another hit in the fifth round of the draft, was part of the club’s 2016 and 2018 championship squads.
Cardona is the longest-tenured Patriot and naturally the team’s longest-tenured special teamer. On offense, that title belongs to guard Michael Onwenu, a 2020 sixth-round draft pick. Defensively, Kyle Dugger is now the gold standard for durability: like Onwenu, he joined the team in the 2020 draft, albeit as a second-round selection.
Linebacker depth...
