That the Patriots put Campbell and Frazier through one last pre-draft workout doesn’t make them unique. Draft picks are major investments, and teams want to make sure they have done their diligence.
But an NFL coach locking horns with two elite draft prospects who are less than half his age? It was unlike anything LSU coach Brian Kelly had ever seen.
“In my 35 years, I’ve seen a lot of workouts ― this was a classic,” Kelly said Friday by phone. “The only time I saw something similar, there was a couple times that Mike Tomlin got involved in a couple of the workouts. But not to the extent of the physicality that Vrabel did. That was an all-time classic.”
What made it classic, besides Vrabel’s participation, was his willingness to take an “L.” Listed at 6 feet 4 inches and probably not far from the 261 pounds he played at, Vrabel, 49, told Campbell and Frazier not to go easy on him.
“I’m not going to lie, I got him on the ground,” Campbell, 21, told reporters on Thursday.
But Campbell didn’t just get Vrabel to the ground. He undersold it, possibly out of deference to his new boss.
What Campbell did is blast Vrabel into next week.
“What I love about Vrabel is he’s like, ’All right, show me what you got,’ ” Kelly said. “And Will’s like, ‘Are you sure?’ And [Vrabel] goes, ‘If you don’t, I don’t like you.’ And he freakin’ rocks him. It was on.”
“You talk about really having aced the interview ― that’s how you ace the interview.”
Vrabel acknowledged Thursday night he definitively lost the battle.
“I realize I’m close to 50, and if that tape ever gets out, people are going to have some problems,” Vrabel said. “I hope that tape never sees the light of day.”
The Patriots didn’t just draft Campbell as their new left tackle because he whupped his soon-to-be head coach. Campbell started all 38 games at left tackle since stepping foot on LSU’s campus as a true freshman in 2022. He twice earned All-SEC honors and once was a consensus All-American, in addition to being a two-time captain.
But Campbell’s attitude and tenacity were the last pieces that Vrabel and executives Eliot Wolf and Ryan Cowden needed to see to determine if Campbell was worth the No. 4 pick.
“I think it was important for me to get out there, feel them and feel every player that we evaluated at the line of scrimmage,” Vrabel said. “When we went down there to work him out, he showed up with one purpose, and that was for us to pick him.”
“From the time that we walked in the building to the time that we left and got on the plane, he had one objective, and that was to prove to us that he was the right player for us. I’ll say that, and I can speak for everybody else that was there.”
Campbell said the workout was “amazing” and admires Vrabel’s willingness to be hands-on.
“We had a great workout, got some good work in. They taught me some new stuff,” he said. “For [Vrabel] to get in there, it shows what type of commitment he has to his players, and I’m just super excited to get to work.”
Campbell was not the only reason the Patriots trekked down to the bayou. Frazier, listed at 6-5 and 317 pounds, started games for LSU at every offensive line spot except center, but he can play center if necessary.
“Miles is a Swiss Army Knife ― he can play center, guard or tackle,” Kelly said. “They didn’t [work him out] by accident, that’s for sure, because it’s apparent that Mike doesn’t do anything by accident.”
Kelly, a Boston native whose brother is a Patriots season ticket-holder, said the workout strengthened his confidence that Vrabel is the right man to turn the Patriots around.
“This was really cool, that you’ve got a guy that’s going to have his hands all over this,” Kelly said. “And he’s going to do it because he’s going to get the kind of guys that he wants. It’s going to be fun watching this, because he’s intimately involved with everything that’s happening.”
Campbell said getting drafted wasn’t just about him, but all his family, coaches, teammates, and friends who helped him achieve his dream. One person he chose to honor Thursday night was former LSU receiver Kyren Lacy, who killed himself during a traffic stop on April 12. Campbell wore a white circle pin with the No. 2 in purple on his suit.
Lacy, a 6-2 receiver, had 866 receiving yards and nine touchdowns last year for the Tigers, and during the fall was earning traction as a potential first-round pick. But his life took a tragic turn in December and January when he was charged with negligent homicide, felony hit and run with death, and reckless operation of a vehicle in relation to a car accident that killed a 78-year-old man.
Amid the serious legal issues, Lacy was disinvited to the NFL Combine, putting his NFL Draft stock into question. In April, Lacy got into a verbal argument with a family member, discharged a firearm and fled the scene. Police chased him for several miles until Lacy ended his life at 24.
Campbell, Lacy’s teammate for three seasons, said it was important to represent Lacy at the draft.
“Kyren was a special human being,” Campbell said. “I’m sending many prayers to his family, because he was going to get his name called this weekend. That’s why I wanted to wear this pin, honor him. Even though his name won’t be called, he’s going to walk across this stage. He’s with us in spirit, and it was just an honor to be a part of his journey.”
Kelly, who flew in and out of Green Bay on Thursday to be with Campbell, said two of Campbell’s best attributes are his selflessness and loyalty. Campbell also wore two other pins on Thursday ― one for LSU, and one for Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism after he got drafted.
“Everyone that was in the green room last night, he was the only one that had his university pin on his suit, and I just thought that spoke about the kind of loyalty he has,” Kelly said. “It’s easy to get caught up in yourself at that time, and rightfully so, but for him to be centered and think about somebody else at that time, I thought that was pretty cool.”
There’s no doubt that Jaguar fans are thrilled their team pulled off the boldest move of the first round, trading up from No. 5 to No. 2 to select Travis Hunter, who the Jaguars said will play receiver and moonlight at cornerback.
But it’s worth asking: Was this trade about the Jaguars selling jerseys and getting more airtime on ESPN? Because they gave up a ton to get Hunter, sending t this year’s second-round pick (No. 36) and next year’s first-rounder.
That type of trade might make sense for a team like the Eagles or Bills, who want to win now. The Jaguars, coming off a 4-13 season, are hardly one player away. Their 31st-ranked defense surely could have used a boost in young talent.
The trade puts the Jaguars’ new leadership structure under the microscope. They have a rookie coach (Liam Coen), a 34-year-old rookie general manager (James Gladstone), and first-time coordinators on both sides (Grant Udinski, Anthony Campanile), which sounds a lot like the 2024 Patriots. Gladstone, who previously worked for the Rams, was hired on Feb. 21, giving him and his new staff just two months to prepare for the draft.
One approach he took from the Rams was not using any of the 30 official visits on pre-draft prospects and instead relying on the Jaguars’ scouting and analytics.
The Rams famously went seven years without using a first-round pick, and still went to two Super Bowls, winning one. At the championship parade, Rams GM Les Snead wore a T-shirt reading “[expletive] them picks.”
“I probably got some familiarity with the ‘[expletive] them picks’ sort of process,” Gladstone said. “For our fans, I’ll tell you, don’t be scared. This is something I’m uniquely positioned to navigate.”
Except Gladstone is going to find out soon enough that the Jaguars, whose 55-109 (.335) record the last 10 years is the worst in the NFL, are not the Rams, and he is probably going to miss those premium picks.
Meanwhile, the trade didn’t come without some risk for the , who used the No. 5 pick on defensive tackle Mason Graham. Berry called Hunter “Shohei Ohtani” in a press conference earlier this month, and the surely disappointed legions of their fans who were ready to buy Hunter jerseys on Friday morning.
But GM Andrew Berry correctly deduced that the Jaguars’ trade offer was simply too good to refuse, especially considering the hadn’t used a first-round pick since 2021 the Deshaun Watson trade. owner Jimmy Haslam also deserves credit for staying out of the way and allowing Berry to pass on a very popular player in Hunter. The trade allowed the to draft four players in the top 67 picks.
“We thought that was just an excellent outcome for us in terms of using the resource of the No. 2 pick,” Berry said.
One NFL legend I didn’t expect to see at the draft was Hall of Fame running back Curtis Martin. He was practically attached at the hip to commissioner Roger Goodell all week, appearing with him at a Play 60 football clinic with the Special Olympics of Wisconsin and a private fan forum, and more. Martin doesn’t have an official role with the league office, but Goodell clearly has taken him under his wing.
Martin, who played his first three years for the Patriots before spending the final eight years with the Jets, said he is thrilled that Bill Parcells, the coach who drafted him in 1995, is finally going into the Patriots Hall of Fame.
“Any place that Bill goes, he kind of turns the whole program around, and I think he did that with the Patriots,” Martin said. “And if it weren’t for him, my career wouldn’t have been near what it was. He was the one person who took a chance on me.”
• The Giants now have a glut of quarterbacks, with No. 25 pick Jaxson Dart joining Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston and Tommy DeVito. Assuming Dart proves he belongs at this level in training camp, here’s betting that Winston is the odd man out, even after getting $3.95 million guaranteed (with some offsets). And while Wilson has been named the starter, I’m putting the over/under at Week 6½ for when Dart takes over.
• The Bears are building a fantasy football team, hiring coach Ben Johnson and drafting TE Colston Loveland and WR Luther Burden with their first two picks. No excuses for Caleb Williams.
• The Falcons also paid a heavy price to beef up their pass rush, trading next year’s first-rounder and dropping back from No. 46 to 101 this year to take pass rusher James Pearce at No. 26. Perhaps this is just confirmation bias, but when I think about big trade-ups for pass rushers, all I can think of are two big busts: The Dolphins going for Dion Jordan and the Saints for Marcus Davenport.
• Cam Ward went No. 1, and Dart was the next QB off the board at 25. The last time a QB went No. 1 and the next one didn’t go until at least 25 was 2010 with Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow. The best quarterback that year probably was third-rounder Colt McCoy.
• Travis Hunter going No. 2 makes him the highest-drafted receiver since Calvin Johnson went second in 2007 and the highest-drafted cornerback ever, besting Charles Woodson at No. 4 in 1998.
* The Browns passed on Shedeur Sanders six times, drafted QB Dillon Gabriel in the third round, then traded up and drafted Sanders in the fifth? None of it makes any sense, which is why they are the Browns.
Lost in the shuffle during the NFL Draft – no veteran players got traded before, during or after the first three rounds. Among those still presumably on the trade block: Bengals DE Trey Hendrickson, Steelers OLB T.J. Watt, Falcons QB Kirk Cousins, Steelers WR George Pickens, Dolphins CB Jalen Ramsey, Packers CB Jaire Alexander, Ravens TE Mark Andrews, and Dolphins WR Tyreek Hill … While the NFL continues expanding its international footprint with regular season games in Brazil, Spain, Ireland and Australia, don’t expect one held in our neighbors to the north any time soon. Toronto’s Rogers Centre, which hosted Bills’ regular-season games from 2008-13, needs upgrades and doesn’t have a field surface up to the NFL’s standards … The NFL owners will reconsider banning all pushing plays (including the tush push) when they convene for their next round of meetings in three weeks in Minnesota. The initial vote was 16-16, so eight owners need to change their mind to pass the rule, which is favored by Roger Goodell. “Yes certain teams are good at it, but is it really good for the game?” said Packers CEO Mark Murphy, who is spearheading the movement to ban push plays. NFL chief medical officer Allen Sills says it’s “when” not “if” a catastrophic injury will occur, and “he’s our chief medical officer. You can’t ignore that,” Murphy said … Rest in peace Tiffany Saine, the mother of Steelers first-round draft pick Derrick Harmon, who died Thursday. She was on life support in recent days after suffering a stroke in 2022 and undergoing eight brain surgeries. But she held on long enough to see Harmon achieve his NFL dream. “If I’m tired, I’m injured, whatever it is, why can’t I keep going if she can get up and she keep going after brain surgery?” Harmon said.
Ben Volin can be reached at [email protected].
