The Patriots are taking a familiar route into Week 3, pulling two veterans up from the practice squad for Sunday’s trip to Jacksonville.
New England elevated safety Mike Brown and defensive tackle Jeremiah Pharms Jr. on the eve of the game against the Jaguars. Both players are expected to go back to the practice squad after the road trip, and both still have two standard elevations available before the Patriots would need to make a 53-man roster move to get them onto the field again.
Brown, 26, landed in Foxborough in March after agreeing to terms when the 2026 league year opened. He had not been tendered as a restricted free agent, was released at the end of August, and then stayed with the team on the practice squad. The 6-foot-1, 218-pound Miami of Ohio product has played in 35 games since entering the league as an undrafted rookie in 2022.
His path has included practice squad stops with the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Cleveland Browns. He later made it onto the 53-man roster of head coach Mike Vrabel’s former Tennessee Titans in 2023 and started five games in the AFC South. Brown’s NFL line includes 60 tackles and two pass deflections over 503 defensive snaps and 760 special teams snaps.
Pharms, 29, has taken a longer road, but he’s become a steady presence for New England. He signed to the Patriots’ practice squad when it was formed after being waived at the cutdown deadline, and now has 31 games and a handful of starts under his belt with the club.
The 6-foot-2, 300-pound defensive tackle arrived in the NFL as an undrafted player in 2020, after earlier stops with the Champions Indoor Football League’s Wichita Force and the USFL’s Pittsburgh Maulers. He got to Gillette Stadium before training camp in 2022.
For the Patriots, Pharms has logged 594 defensive snaps and 128 on special teams, piling up 45 tackles, two sacks and one fumble recovery. The former linebacker out of Sacramento City College, San Joaquin Delta College and Friends University finished the 2025 run to Super Bowl LX on the practice squad before re-signing on a futures contract.
One active roster spot remains open for now.
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