Brenden Schooler is the New England Patriots‘ special teams ace. But after Sunday’s defensive domination of the Chicago Bears, he finally has some defensive highlights on his resume.
That includes the third-year player recording one of New England‘s nine sacks on the day. It was the first sack of Schooler’s career. Not just his NFL career — his football career.
“It was awesome,” Schooler said. “It was my first career sack ever – going back to Pop Warner, high school and college. So it was a pretty cool feeling.”
Schooler’s defensive debut was part of the new “Longhorn” package the Patriots defense employed Sunday in Chicago.
Named after Schooler’s college team, the Texas Longhorns, alignment brought out the special teams ace in passing situations to spy Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, keeping him contained and preventing him from escaping the pocket.
The experiment was a success, with Schooler successfully zeroing in on the No. 1 overall pick. After the game, the Patriots said that it was a priority for them to keep Williams contained and not let him use his athleticism to generate big plays.
As for Schooler, he was just waiting to see if and when defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington would put him in the game.
“Every single time third down was up, I was looking over at (Covington), seeing if he was going to throw up the Longhorn signal for me to get in there,“ Schooler said. ”Just super, super excited to get in there and just help the team in any way we can today.”
Schooler is listed as a safety on the Patriots roster. But in reality, he spends virtually all of his time focused on special teams. Heading into Sunday’s game, Schooler had yet to log a defensive snap all season. Now in his third season, Schooler had only played two defensive snaps in his entire NFL career.
But with Jabrill Peppers on the Commissioner’s Exempt List and Kyle Dugger injured, the Patriots were thin at safety Sunday. Jaylinn Hawkins and Dell Pettus stepped up into bigger roles for most of the game. But the Patriots had to dig deeper into their bag of tricks to help on third downs.
Schooler may not have had the resume, but he certainly had the traits to set him up for success in that role.
“He‘s fast, he‘s athletic and he’s a football player, Jerod Mayo said. ”We try not to put anyone in a box and I’m not going to put him in one.”
The Patriots clearly value Schooler, enough that they signed him to a three-year extension earlier this month.
It seems New England made a savvy move in locking up Schooler. After the deal was announced, special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer told reports that he got texts from “30 coaches” saying he’d got scooped up by another team if the Patriots let him hit the market.
