On Thursday night, the Patriots did what many around the football world expected them to do, as LSU left tackle Will Campbell was selected No. 4 overall by New England in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Despite all the chatter around Campbell’s historically short arm measurement at the NFL Scouting Combine, Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel forged ahead with the player who has been talked about since last summer as the top left tackle candidate in this year’s draft class.
On Friday afternoon, Campbell was officially introduced on the field at Gillette Stadium, being presented with the traditional No. 1 jersey by team chairman and CEO Robert Kraft and team president Jonathan Kraft.
Before their photo opp, Robert Kraft provided some interesting context around today’s proceedings in Foxborough, making a corollary between Campbell and one of the greatest players in the history of football.
“It’s always special to welcome a new Patriot, and today’s presentation carries a special value to me,” Kraft said at the podium on stage at Gillette. “25 years ago, as the stadium was being constructed, we started a tradition that brings pride and promise to bringing the Patriots’ top pick out here and presenting him with a No. 1 jersey.
“And that tradition started exactly 25 years ago, when we brought Richard Seymour here and presented him with the No. 1 jersey. Today, we continue that tradition and legacy with another young man that hopefully will bring us into a new era the same way Richard did in his early years. So, it's a great honor for me to introduce our No. 1 draft pick, Will Campbell.”
Like Campbell, Seymour was joining a team in 2001 that had lost double-digit games the year before. While that team had loads of veterans on the defensive side of the football ready to enter their primes, it wasn’t until the arrival of Seymour - the sixth overall pick out of Georgia - that those players really took off and became franchise legends. As we all know, that side of the football spearheaded the Patriots towards three Super Bowl victories in four years, and helped establish the franchise as the gold standard in the NFL for the first two decades of the 21st century.
Unlike Seymour, Campbell is joining a side of the football with unproven talent across the board, especially within the position group he’ll be calling home. While the Patriots’ offensive line will surely be “new-look” in 2025, it will be a unit that has never played a meaningful snap together until Week 1 gets underway.
Will Cole Strange be healthy? Is he going to play guard or center? Can Garrett Bradbury come in and convincingly win the starting center job? Will Mike Onwenu reestablish himself as one of the game’s best right guards? Will 34-year-old Morgan Moses be able to play in all 17 games at right tackle for the first time since 2002?
Regardless of what the answers inevitably are to any of those questions, Campbell being a surefire starting left tackle from day one will do wonders for a team looking to enter a new era of winning under Vrabel. If Campbell can come in and live up to the billing of a No. 4 overall pick on 22-year-old Drake Maye’s blindside, the temperature of any potential problems across the rest of the offensive line comes way down.
Speaking of the quarterback, that’s something Campbell and a rookie Seymour will have in common as well - to a degree.
Campbell gets Maye, who is coming into his sophomore season with all the hype in the world after filling the 2024 season with highlight plays amidst the chaos of a 4-13 season, so much so that he was selected to the Pro Bowl as an alternate for the AFC.
Seymour eventually had a second-year quarterback, too.
His name was Tom Brady, and he ended up being pretty good after taking over for an injured Drew Bledsoe under center.
That team went on to win one of the most unlikely Lombardi Trophies in NFL history.
Another difference between Campbell and Seymour?
I’m not sure this rookie will be playing on football’s biggest stage anytime soon.
With that being said - if Campbell can maximize his ceiling in the coming years, and both Maye and third-year All-Pro cornerback Christian Gonzalez can continue to play at a high level, that will be three straight seasons where New England nailed their first round pick.
If those young studs buy into a newly established culture of winning under Vrabel, more buy-in will follow from a locker room filled with new faces from New England’s active free agency period this spring. If that championship mentality is married with talent, you’re off to the races for the next generation of winning at 1 Patriot Place.
In a perfect world for Patriots fans, Kraft’s mention of Seymour on Friday will be viewed as prophetic when looking back on Campbell’s career.
Could Campbell join Seymour as a member of football’s most exclusive fraternity as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Who knows.
If he does, we’ll have another difference between the two:
Sleeve length on their gold jackets.
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