For Gabe Jacas, Saturday night against the Philadelphia Eagles was less about the final stat line and more about another step in a crash course that’s still very much in progress.
The New England Patriots’ second-round rookie lined up as a defensive starter in the preseason game at Gillette Stadium, and the flashes were there. He finished with four tackles and a quarterback hit on Eagles backup Andy Dalton, including a second-quarter snap where he came free, burst into the backfield and forced an incompletion.
But the rough edges showed up too, which is exactly why this stretch matters for a player who didn’t get onto the field with New England until Aug. 1.
Jacas missed the spring because of knee and pre-draft hamstring injuries, and his rookie contract wasn’t settled until July 26. That delay left him playing catch-up before he ever took a snap in a Patriots practice. Now, with the regular season set to begin in September, every preseason rep is carrying extra weight.
“It was a good night. Another game under my belt.
Another game I can learn from. New opportunities,” Jacas said after the matchup.
“[I’m] just grateful and blessed that I was out there, running around and having fun.”
The 22-year-old said the biggest part of his adjustment has been learning to process the game faster at the NFL level.
“Just the little things,” Jacas said about what he’s been working on during his first two preseason contests. “First of all is alignment, hand placement [and] looking at backfield sets.
You know, all the little things that not only my coach (Mike Smith) but also [Mike] Vrabel talks about. So, those things I can work on.”
That growth curve is exactly what Mike Vrabel is watching. The Patriots coach said Jacas is still uneven, even if the tools and mindset are obvious.
“I think [he’s] just still inconsistent,” Vrabel said about Jacas’ development after the game. “I think that the effort is certainly there.
The willingness. He is a very coachable player.
We are just putting a lot on him right now as far as special teams and covering kicks and playing on kick return. We have to be able to see what he can do and maybe what we feel like we can count on when the regular season comes.
“I think he will just continue to improve because he has that type of attitude, and he is willing, and I know he will get back to work real quick.”
There was also a costly mistake to go with the good moments. On the play before Jacas’ pressure, Kindle Vildor intercepted Dalton and took it into the red zone, only for a roughing-the-passer penalty on Jacas to erase the turnover.
Jacas called that flag a “learning lesson” and said he needs to be more careful moving forward.
The late start to his offseason has also made the special teams side of his development more complicated. Because he wasn’t practicing until August, he missed valuable reps in an area Vrabel views as essential for young players. Earlier in the month, Vrabel spent significant one-on-one time with Jacas on punt protection work.
Vrabel also pointed to Jacas’ special teams play as an area that improved from last week’s preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts.
“There are a lot of ebbs and flows of a professional football game,” Vrabel said about what he’s looking for in players fighting through adversity. “How can you handle making a mistake?
How can you handle getting blocked? How can you handle having a good play and then coming back and being able to do it again?
And how they bounce back, how they handle different situations. What they do in live action, I think, is really critical.”
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