Cory Durden isn’t shy about his goal for the upcoming NFL season: he wants to get after the other team’s quarterback and take him down a lot.
“I feel like I’m a good pass rusher. I want to go get five sacks this year. So, that's something that I've worked on a lot this summer. And you know, this this offseason, OTA’s, is just being active pass rusher, trying to get on the field on third down,” Durden said after Monday’s practice.
The nose tackle came from humble beginnings in the NFL and made huge strides in the Patriots’ 2025 season. New England signed him to the practice squad last August. By Super Bowl 60, he was a starter. As an undrafted free agent in 2023, he’s always had to fight for his spot, (he first signed with the Detroit Lions, before stints with the Los Angeles Rams and New York Giants).
Durden shared how spent time this summer in Las Vegas, working out with Dallas Cowboys defensive tackles Quinnen Williams and Kenny Clark. Vegas Raiders superstar Maxx Crosby organized the meetups through their shared agent.
“Just being able to soak up knowledge from guys like that is very helpful because, I mean, Quinn Williams just got that massive contract,” Durden said. “So, those guys are dominant players.”
Williams signed a three-year deal worth upwards of $105.9 million with the Cowboys last week. Durden said such money was “the goal,” but laughed and insisted saying so aloud would get him in hot water.
Posting five sacks would solve quite a bit for the Patriots’ pass rush. Fellow interior guys Milton Williams and Christian Barmore combined for 5.5 sacks last season, so they’re already stout inside. But with the departure of linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson last spring and Harold Landry III’s status on the Physically Unable to Perform list, there’s plenty of areas in which others can help when it comes to making quarterbacks uncomdrotable.
After a late start to the offseason program due to contract negotiations, rookie edge rusher Gabe Jacas isn’t getting any slack from head coach Mike Vrabel. He sounded somewhat underwhelmed by his preseason debut against the Indianapolis Colts last week, describing his progress as “okay,” but also took a minute to praise Jacas’ coachability.
“I think that it [progress] needs to be better,” he said. “It was better on Saturday than it was in the game. We pointed some things out to him in the game, and I felt it was really cool of him to be able to make those corrections and look at some of the body positions that we feel like he should be in, and he was really conscious of those, and I saw those things translate in just a quick, short amount of time from the meeting after the game to Saturday's practice.”
The Patriots will also look to linebacker DreMont Jones to bring the pressure. Jones left early in practice over the weekend, but he was a full participant in Monday’s padded practice. He tied a career-high record of 6.5 sacks last season as he split time between the Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens.
Durden’s efforts to bear down on the quarterback has caught Vrabel’s attention.
“He's easy to coach,” he said. “You can coach him hard, and he usually tries to make the corrections and comes back, and I think he has continued to improve. He's played well in the run game, flashed a little bit of first and second down pass rush, being able to get into the pocket.”
