The Patriots’ defense did plenty right in Sunday’s 45-17 rout of the Raiders, but Brock Bowers still flashed the one matchup problem New England hasn’t solved yet.
Las Vegas never really got rolling with Kirk Cousins or Ashton Jeanty, both of whom were kept largely under wraps. Bowers, though, was a different story. For the second year in a row, he gave the Patriots trouble, and he did it with the kind of body control and catch radius that makes life miserable for smaller defensive backs.
The former Georgia standout finished with 8 catches on 10 targets for 110 yards and a touchdown. That came after he put up five grabs for 103 yards when these teams met in Week 1 of 2025.
He also lost a fumble late in the third quarter, but for most of the afternoon he was the Raiders’ most reliable weapon. Across three games this season, Bowers has averaged 104 yards and a touchdown.
The issue for New England is obvious when you look at the matchup. Marcus Jones fought hard in coverage, but at 5-foot-8, he was giving up eight inches to Bowers. Charles Woods and Kindle Vildor aren’t built to handle that kind of tight end either, and veteran safety Kevin Byard had his own rough moment with a pass interference penalty on the opening drive.
If the Patriots want more answers against bigger targets near the goal line and over the middle, they may need more size in the defensive backfield. There are a few ways they could go about it.
One option is Jeff Okudah, a free agent whose name still carries plenty of draft-day weight. The former third overall pick in 2020 was once compared to 2019 Defensive Player of the Year Stephon Gilmore, but his NFL path has been uneven.
He was limited to 10 games over his first two seasons, then appeared in 15 games in 2022. That year brought mixed results: a 7.8% missed tackle rate and just two touchdowns allowed, but also repeated coverage issues, including three games in which he gave up more than 110 yards.
He surrendered a 61.5% completion rate and posted a passer rating above 100.0 six times, including a perfect 158.3 against the Packers in Week 9.
After that season, Okudah was traded to Atlanta for a late-round pick, spent one year with the Falcons, then signed with Houston before playing in six games for the Vikings last season. That run was rough.
Opposing passers completed 11 of 12 throws for 175 yards and a touchdown against him. He’s not close to the prospect he was billed as coming out of Ohio State, but at 6-foot-1 he would at least bring length and former top-five pedigree.
If New England thinks its physical system can squeeze something out of him, a practice squad move would make sense.
Another possibility is Kristian Fulton, now with the Chiefs. A second-round pick by Mike Vrabel’s Tennessee Titans in 2020, the 5-foot-11 corner has experience both inside and outside. He played alongside Derek Stingley Jr. at LSU in 2019 and opened his NFL career with a meaningful role in Tennessee.
Fulton logged more than half his snaps in the slot early on before moving outside, and he saw 99 total snaps in Kansas City’s first two games this year. Since then, though, he’s played only 16.
With Mansoor Delane back after missing Week 2 because of a shoulder injury, the Chiefs’ need to keep Fulton as depth has eased. Kansas City could still prefer to keep him, but with a $13 million cap hit, a late-round pick from New England might be tempting.
If Vrabel wants to keep working with Fulton, that kind of trade would be easy to understand.
The Patriots also have two internal names in the mix. Elliott Davison was promoted for Sunday’s game after New England dressed only three cornerbacks against the Raiders.
The rookie went undrafted after playing at Incarnate Word and UTSA, then spent the preseason with the Saints before landing on the Patriots’ practice squad. With New Orleans, he played 116 snaps over three games, mostly at safety or in the box, with only seven snaps in the slot.
Against Las Vegas, Davison made a strong impression in a tiny sample. He earned an 83.2 PFF grade on 10 snaps, nine of them in coverage. He was targeted three times, allowed one catch for six yards, and showed enough size at 6 feet to make himself worth watching.
New England also added Al'zillion Hamilton to the practice squad last week. He wasn’t elevated for Sunday, but his résumé at Fresno State suggests there could be something there.
Hamilton allowed a 53.2% completion rate in college and tied a career high with four interceptions in 2025. The flip side is the flag count: he was penalized five times, also a career high.
At 5-foot-11, he at least fits the mold of a defensive back with more length.
Whether the Patriots choose to sign, trade for, or simply wait on their own options, the message from Sunday was hard to miss: if they want to match up better with tight ends like Brock Bowers, they probably need more height.
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