Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Breakout: Can Kyle Williams Earn Drake Maye’s Trust and Patriots' WR3 Role?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Camp is just over one week away, and it is set up to be the most important month of Kyle Williams-Young NFL career. This is Locked-on Patriots. You are Locked-on Patriots, your daily New England Patriots podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Happening. I am your host, Nick Cattels. On today's episode, the long-term roster builds clearly shows what the top priorities are for this program. second segment. There has been a lot of talk surrounding Elijah Ponder, and it's time for him to walk the walk. But first, Kyle Williams, an opportunity. Camp starts next Saturday, and this is an absolutely huge month coming up for Kyle Williams. The goal is not to be wide receiver one.

Starting point is 00:00:55 That's going to be A.J. Brown. The goal is not even to be wide receiver two. That's going to be Romeo Dobbs. No, the goal for Kyle Williams is to claim his spot as wide receiver three on this roster before this team heads to Seattle. And Kyle Williams' offseason seemed to be focused on the right things. Phil Perry posted several weeks ago, Williams estimates he's up to about 193 pounds after playing last year closer to 185. I like that. Estimates he's up about 193 pounds. What's your weight? Up to about 193. That's a pretty specific number. Back to Phil Perry. Williams mentions it was a focus of his to get his lower body stronger this offseason. This was desperately needed. I mean, when you watch Kyle Williams,

Starting point is 00:01:50 you've got to understand that the lower body strength would only help his production, would only help his game. Now, why is that? Well, if he's bigger in the lower body, if he puts on this weight, if he puts on this muscle, it will help him get off press coverage. When you're not the biggest dude in the world, when you are slight, you go against a very physical corner and that very physical corner gets to play press coverage against you, you're going to have a tough time separating from that cornerback to make plays.

Starting point is 00:02:25 Better strength, more muscle, better lower body strength, helps you fight through press coverage. It also arguably would help Kyle Williams and his yards after the catch. Now, he had that at the college level. Don't get it twisted. But in the NFL, it will only help Kyle Williams if he is stronger in the lower body to fight through tackles to get those couple of extra yards. It's one of the reasons why A.J. Brown was a yak machine, especially early in his career, because he's somebody that could take a slant route, run through a couple dudes,

Starting point is 00:03:03 and pick up an extra 8, 10, 12 yards. The better body strength, especially lower body strength, will help Kyle Williams fight through arm tackles and get through defensive backs. if he's going to go across the middle, having better strength and more muscle will help him fight through the traffic he will inevitably have to fight through. So lower body strength.

Starting point is 00:03:28 Sounds like Kyle Williams has tried to check that box during the offseason. Was it a success? We'll see during camp. Mark Daniels, late May, wrote this at Mass Live. When it came to this off season, Williams noted one of his goals was improving consistency, quote, building chemistry with Drake and everything, being able to learn the playbook and just whatever they need for me, just being able to execute at a high level. Chemistry is going to be crucial. Is Kyle Williams and Drake May on the same page? We saw it, I don't want to say often, that would probably be overstating it, but we saw it enough that it stood out to us in 2025.

Starting point is 00:04:16 when Kyle Williams was seemingly not on the same page as his quarterback. And if you're Drake May, are you going to continue to look for Kyle Williams if you don't believe he's on that same page with you? So I would say that trust is even more important. Trust is important in every relationship, my friends, in every single one. Does Drake May trust Kyle Williams? Does he trust that Kyle Williams is going to be in the right spot at the right time? Is he going to trust that Kyle Williams is running the route he expects Kyle Williams to run?

Starting point is 00:04:52 So yes, it goes hand in hand with chemistry, but trust is so important when you talk quarterback to wide receiver. And it was rather obvious to me and probably obvious to all of you listening and or watching that Kyle Williams did not quite earn that trust from Drake May. not in 2025. We'll see if he takes a step forward in 2026. At least he is aware of it. He knows building chemistry with Drake,

Starting point is 00:05:23 being able to learn the playbook. Sounds like he's working on it. Is it going to be a success? Again, got to wait till it can. Other aspects that I think Kyle Williams could be more consistent with, route running. Rout running.

Starting point is 00:05:41 Is he running the right route? is he executing that route correctly? Is he aware of what's going on around him when a defense is playing zone? Does he truly understand where he is supposed to be? Does he understand when he is supposed to sit on a route and not sit on a route? Is he going to be simpatico with Drake May when a certain situation pops up like Drake May reading a blitz and understanding, I'm going to get to my hot route.

Starting point is 00:06:14 Is Kyle Williams going to understand that? Is he going to be aware of that? These are all the things. Again, a lot of this stuff impacts many rookies throughout the game. But it's about taking that next step, taking that next step forward, which is why this next month is so critical to the development of Kyle Williams. And if you are hopeful like I am of Kyle Williams impacting this past game positively for the next five, six, seven years, it all starts at this camp. It's like Michael McDonald, this is it.

Starting point is 00:06:55 Like this is it for Kyle Williams. If he wants to make a mark, he's got to do it at this camp. He's got the tools. I mean, you see Kyle Williams in college and you saw some of the. the flashes last year from Williams. He's got the tools to be a good NFL wide receiver. We talk about receivers that can't separate. Williams can separate. He can separate at the line of scrimmage. We saw it last year. We saw it in the preseason. We saw it in the regular season. He can separate from the defender. And if he can separate at the line of scrimmage and build that

Starting point is 00:07:34 chemistry and trust with Drake May to go along with building that body strength, that's when you start taking that step. But he's got the separation to the line of scrimmage. He obviously has the speed. He does a really good job of tracking the football when it's in the air. We saw that multiple times last year. He is also versatile, which I don't think the Patriots utilized enough last year. A lot of times last year it was kind of.

Starting point is 00:08:04 William's boundary, just run deep, bro. Just run deep. Help us out. Be the X. Run down the field. But he is more capable than that. He brings more to the table than that. And if you watched him in college, if you just look at his highlights, you see that he is more

Starting point is 00:08:23 capable than just running down the field, taking the quote unquote, top off the defense. So hopefully the Patriots will utilize Kyle Williams' versatility more in 2020. then they did in 2025. And I'm sure part of the reasoning was because he was a rookie. And you go back to Elliot Wolf. Elliot Wolf last year said about Jalen Polk, that he felt like they put too much on Jalen Polk's plate as a rookie. Maybe they looked at Kyle Williams and said,

Starting point is 00:08:51 we don't want to put too much on this young man's plate. We'll wait till year two, year three. Now, I don't think Kyle Williams is going to get a ton of opportunity during this camp, which makes it even tougher for him. It's going to be a challenge to get opportunity to get reps with Drake May when you've got AJ Brown, Romeo Dobbs, Matt Collins, the Patriots, Mike Vrable and Drake May, both stating that they want to get Pop Douglas more involved. So Kyle Williams, it's not going to be about quantity of reps.

Starting point is 00:09:26 It's going to be about the quality of the reps. every single rep that he gets with Drake May is pivotal. And if he wants to take that next step, if he wants to make the claim by the end of camp, that he is the third receiver on this team, that it is mostly going to be A.J. Brown, Romeo, Dobbs, and Kyle Williams, which is what I want to see while sprinkling in a little bit of Pop Douglas in some Mack Hollins and big formations.

Starting point is 00:09:56 if Kyle Williams can claim that third spot on the depth chart in that room, it is a significant development for him individually and for the football team. And I am hoping he gets there. Big time month coming up for the sophomore. Speaking of coming up and speaking of sophomores, all eyes are on Elijah Ponder. This is Lockdown Patriots, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Now the number one sports podcast network, your team every day.

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Starting point is 00:11:48 Thank you for making us your first listen and for being in every day. Don't forget to help us out. You're watching on YouTube. Click that thumbs up. Give us a like. Helps us with that algorithm. Don't forget to throw a comment in. are you excited? What kind of expectations do you have for Kyle Williams's camp coming up?

Starting point is 00:12:05 And don't forget to subscribe. Greg Bedard several weeks ago said to me that the Patriots love Elijah Ponder. And the coaches, we know the coaching staff, they've waxed poetic about Elijah Ponder. Mike Giardt wrote this about Ponder. I'm not sure any player on the Patriots got as much shine during mandatory minicamp as Elijah Ponder. Here's what what Zach Corr said. Quote, Elijah Ponder has been a phenomenal pro this spring. He's taking great steps to improve his technique,

Starting point is 00:12:38 his play demeanor. By the second half of last season, Garty writes, Ponder was a productive rotational piece. To his credit, nothing the staff asked him to do seemed to put him out over his skis. Mike Smith, outside linebackers coach,

Starting point is 00:12:55 pass rush specialist, said, quote, about Elijah Ponder, he's very intelligent. When you're very intelligent like that, he's big. He's as athletic. He's done some kind of freaky stuff, the spring around the edge, the top of his rush that you're like, oh, wow, that's pretty nice to see. We saw some flashes from Elijah Ponder in 2025. And those flashes matter, I think, more with Ponder than maybe some other rookies.

Starting point is 00:13:27 Now, why is that? Elijah Ponder played his college football at Cal Poly. That is a lower level of competition. And so if you're playing at a lower level of competition and you're a UDFA like Elijah Ponder was, we should expect the transition to be much tougher from a Cal Poly to the NFL than a Georgia, for example, to the NFL. that leap in competition, that leap in speed, it is just an entirely different football player lined up across from you.

Starting point is 00:14:05 So the fact that we saw the flashes, given that he was coming from Cal Poly, means an awful lot to me regarding Elijah Potter, because that should have been an incredibly tough transition. Some dudes just can't make it. A lot of dudes can't make it. But Elijah Potter in year one looked like he started to adapt to the league. And he adapted to the league quicker than I anticipated.

Starting point is 00:14:35 And here's the thing. It wasn't just the flashes that he showed. He showed improvement. And he showed that he could learn more and more and more and deal with learning more and more and more. He showed improvement against the run, which was one of the biggest, if not the biggest questions as he entered the draft last year. Lance Zerline, NFL.com on Elijah Ponder's weaknesses, miscalculates and sheds block into the wrong gap,

Starting point is 00:15:08 frequently outflanked on wide runs and loses contain. Lance Zerline wrote about Elijah Ponder, he doesn't make anywhere near the impact he should create as a run defender relative to his physical tools, physical tools, his physical tools and level of competition. A little bit of slip. So he wasn't good against the run at Cal Poly.

Starting point is 00:15:31 If somebody's not good against the run at Cal Poly as an outside linebacker slash edge, if they can't do that at Cal Poly, how in the world would you expect them to do it at the NFL level? But he continued to get better against the run throughout the year. So maybe it was he was at Cal Poly

Starting point is 00:15:49 and he was just trying to stack up the sacks and the pass rush numbers so he could be a pass rush specialist thinking, well, that's what NFL teams want. Guys, that can get to the quarterback. I'm not really worried about defending the run. That's not my job. Maybe that was it.

Starting point is 00:16:05 Maybe it was lack of coaching. I don't know. All I can tell you, still can't get over the stool thing. All I can tell you is that Elijah Ponder throughout the season got better. His relative athletic score, by the way, was 9.7. At the time he was coming out last year for the draft, that that was 62nd, 60 second best relative athletic score at defense event. There are a lot of stud athletes at Edge.

Starting point is 00:16:37 You go back from 1987 to 2025, Elijah Ponder was just outside the top 60 when it came to relative athletic score. He's got the RAS, he's got the physical tools. And when you have somebody like that, you could say, well, maybe coaching could be or will be the difference maker. And maybe that's what we're seeing play out. Maybe we're seeing Elijah Ponder getting coached at a higher level than he was at Cal Poly, taking to that coaching and getting the very most out of his athleticism and his physical tools.

Starting point is 00:17:17 When you have the physical traits that Ponder has, and you combine those physical traits with seemingly good character, Don't know him personally, but it seems like he's got good character. When you combine the physical traits, the character, his work ethic, the coaches say he works his tail off. And as Mike Smith said, his intelligence. When you start to combine all of those physical traits, character, work ethic, IQ, then you have somebody who could exceed all the projections, could exceed the expectations, could exceed the expectations that pundits had for him.

Starting point is 00:17:59 And maybe just maybe, he was brought into the perfect situation with the perfect staff that could get the most from him. His fit with Mike Vrable's system to round peg and a round hole. He's 6 foot 2, 251. Now, the relative athletic score, by the way, would label that size and frame as, quote,

Starting point is 00:18:23 quote, poor for the position. But as we've talked about before, Mike Vrable does not mind his defensive ends being 250, 255 pounds. He can work with that. His staff can work with that. So maybe Elijah Ponder, the level of competition, the lack of production against the run, the fact he was 6-2-251.

Starting point is 00:18:47 These are all different reasons as to why he was an undrafted free agent and not picked in the actual draft last year. But as we know, scheme matters, staff matters. And Elijah Ponder could end up fitting perfectly with the Patriots and not fit so well for many other teams. And I'll tell you, if Ponder can make a leap at the edge position, that position is much, much better in the short-term and, and long term. If he can make that leap, I don't know if he's going to. There's a lot of talk.

Starting point is 00:19:30 He'll talk to talk, walk to walk. He's got to walk over the next month or so. He's going to make plays. He's got to dominate stretches of joint practices. He's going to show that he's that guy. You put the pads on. You're going to show you're that guy. But there is a lot to like about Elijah ponder. And inside the walls at that facility, he's got a number of fans. They believe in him. Mike Vrable and company have shown their hand on how they envision the foundation of a football program. That's coming up next. This is Lockdown Patriots, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Mike Vrable stood in front of the media when he was first hired in January of 2025 and mentioned the boxes that needed to be checked to sustain a successful program.

Starting point is 00:20:31 And he has certainly followed through. Thanks for checking out the lockdown podcast network, now the number one sports podcast network. Don't you forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Appreciate every single one of you. 2025, I think many of us can say, was surprisingly special. I don't think many people expected the Patriots to make a run to the Super Bowl. In 2026, all we can talk about is on paper right now. And to me, this football team is better on paper. The roster is stronger. But that doesn't mean there aren't a number of long-term questions. There are. And so when we talk about long-term with this team for this conversation, long term will be set at three to four years.

Starting point is 00:21:26 Because I think once you talk about five years in the NFL, it's almost a lifetime. And there are positions on this roster that you look at, and you say long term, the next three to four years, we don't know what those positions are going to look like. Wide receiver one, A.J. Brown, 29 years old. What does that look like three years from now? linebacker Roberts Blaine, Christian Ellis.

Starting point is 00:21:54 Is anybody behind those guys that makes you feel confident in the future? Not yet. So what's linebacker look like? Tight end. Hunter Henry, Eli Rairden. How much does Hunter Henry have left? How quickly can Eli Rairden adapt? The Julian Hill injury.

Starting point is 00:22:13 So there are those positions and others that you can look at and say, not really sure about the next three to four years. Meanwhile, there are spots that feel solidified. And because of those spots being what they are, the team building priorities are obvious. You start with the quarterback, drafting Drake May in 2024. A lot of people would say that was a no-brainer.

Starting point is 00:22:43 Some people said the Patriots shouldn't do it. some people said the Patriots should start building their team first and then get the quarterback. Some people said the Patriots should trade down and draft J.J. McCarthy or Michael Penix or Bo Nix. The Patriots drafted May in 2024. And it certainly seems like the long-term future of that position is set. But it's not just the quarterback. I want to pay special attention to the trenches. The offensive line,

Starting point is 00:23:20 you invest in Will Campbell with a top five pick. You invest in Jared Wilson. You go out and you invest in Elijah Veritucker this offseason. You do what you did in the first round of the draft this past year. Move up and draft Caleb Lomu. The offensive line, if these guys, that I just named, if they stay healthy and they fulfill their potential, four of the five offensive line spots should be settled for the next,

Starting point is 00:23:52 at least, at least three to four years. Same can be said for the defensive line. Milton Williams, 27, plenty of gas left in the tank, especially how he approaches his career. Christian Barmore. Now, you might make the decision financially to move on from Barmore, but Christian Barmore is certainly young. enough and has impacted games at a high enough level to believe that he could be a player for you

Starting point is 00:24:17 for the next three, four years. Corey Durdon, Joshua Farmer, Leonard Taylor. You look at Edge, drafting Gabe Accus this year, Elijah Ponder, who we just talked about last segment, drafting, you know, Braden Swinson last year. So you bring in the UDFA and Ponder. You draft Swinson, You draft Accus. You sign Milton Williams to a big deal. You keep Christian Barmore and give him his guaranteed money this year. You find Corey Durden. You draft Joshua Farmer.

Starting point is 00:24:55 You go out and you find Leonard Taylor. So offensive line, defensive line, if long term in this conversation is considered three to four years, you're looking really good at quarterback O line and D line. Again, if these guys fulfill their potential, and that's what you're doing. When you're building a team, you're projecting and you're not taking a Will Campbell fourth overall if you don't think Will Campbell projects to be a starter for you for the next 10 plus years. You're not moving up and drafting Caleb Lomo if you don't feel that way.

Starting point is 00:25:35 You're not drafting Gabe Accus. You're not moving up and drafting Gabe Accus if you don't feel that way. You're not giving that money to Milton Williams. You're not guaranteeing the Christian barmore cash. So if these guys can fulfill their potential, quarterback in the trenches feel settled. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine saying that in 2023?

Starting point is 00:26:02 Could you imagine saying that in 2024? And you go back to Mike Vrable meeting with the media in January of last year. And during that meeting, during that press conference, the introductory press conference, Mike Vrable emphasized a few things. He emphasized effort and finish. And I think for the most part, we see a lot of effort and finish from this football team.

Starting point is 00:26:29 But he also emphasized winning at the line of scrimmage. And he has followed through. Not about words. It's about actions. And he has started to build a team that has that effort and finish. and it's clear. It is clear. When you look at what this team has invested in

Starting point is 00:26:52 in how they've utilized their draft picks, it is clear. Offensive line, defensive line. It's old school. It's cliche, but it starts up front. You get your quarterback, you build those trenches, not just words, actions. And the 2027 draft is going to be,

Starting point is 00:27:17 fascinating because if the Patriots do feel like they're settled in the trenches, then they've got opportunity to address other positions in a draft that is going to be considered one of the best drafts talent-wise that we've seen in quite a while. Now, my way too early expectation for next year's draft, and of course it's way too early, is that the Patriots probably will go defense heavy. Of course, it depends on who's there. if somebody falls into your lap, then you take the BPA, best player available. But I think the plan, if you're talking about right now what next year's draft looks

Starting point is 00:27:55 like, I think the plan would be, let's go defense heavy. Because I don't think it would be a surprise if the Patriots addressed cornerback, safety, linebacker, and maybe even edge if Elijah Ponder doesn't take that step forward. It's not crazy to think that those four defensive positions could be addressed. the first three or four rounds of next year's draft. But don't get it twisted. When you talk about building a foundation, when you talk about a Mike Vrable football team, you see it playing out. Address the line of scrimmage. Win up front. Give effort and finish. And if you've got the right amount of talent, if you've handled those things,

Starting point is 00:28:40 you're going to win the majority of your football games. That wraps up. this edition of Lockdown Patriots, reach out to me on Twitter, will you? It's at Nick C Radio, again at Nick C Radio. And don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe on YouTube. Thank you for making Lockdown Patriots your first listen. For your second listen, check out Lockdown NFL scouting. Kyle Crabs and Joe Marino will make you the most informed NFL fan this offseason. Find Locked on NFL scouting on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Have a great day. We'll see you next time.

Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Breakout: Can Kyle Williams Earn Drake Maye’s Trust and Patriots' WR3 Role?

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