Heading into this offseason, the New England Patriots knew they needed to improve their offensive line. Last year, they had one of the worst offensive lines, ranking 27th in sacks allowed (52).
The Patriots addressed their offensive line needs in both free agency and the draft, signing Morgan Moses and Garrett Bradbury, and selecting Will Campbell, Jared Wilson, and Marcus Bryant. So far, all of these new additions have made an immediate impact on the line and are projected to play a crucial role this season.
Moses, Bradbury, and Campbell are projected to join Michael Onwenu as the starters, while Wilson is currently battling Ben Brown for the starting left guard spot. After Saturday’s preseason game, Bryant seems to have won the swing tackle job over Vederian Lowe and Demontrey Jacobs.
Marcus Bryant Seemingly Wins Patriots Swing Tackle Job
In Saturday’s preseason game against the Minnesota Vikings, Marcus Bryant made the start at right tackle in place of Moses. The emergence of Bryant has been a surprising one, given that he was the team’s seventh-round pick in this year’s draft.
Bryant started training camp at the back of the depth chart and wasn’t viewed as a potential swing tackle given Lowe and Jacob’s experience. However, things changed when Moses got hurt and the team started to put him on load management, which prompted Bryant’s increase in reps.
The Patriots flipped Bryant from left tackle to right, and slowly, Bryant worked his way up, splitting first-team reps with Jacobs. Bryant played five years in college, his first four with SMU and his last with Missouri, where he served as left tackle in all but one year (2021), earning first-team All-AAC honors in 2023.
The Patriots are impressed with how Bryant has been performing in camp and rewarded him by starting him at right tackle. In his first start at the professional level, he didn’t disappoint, with PFF giving him a 72.4 overall grade and a 77.2 pass block grade, allowing zero pressures in 28 snaps.
With his performance against the Vikings, he should undoubtedly be the swing tackle, as he’s proven to be a better option than both Jacobs and Lowe.