
Dolphins G Jonah Savaiinaea started all 17 games after being a second-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. He feels like he did not play up to his expectations as a rookie, but learned a lot along the way.
“Definitely this season was not to my expectations or the standard I wanted to begin my career with,” Savaiinaea said, via Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. “But I’ve learned and become a better player toward the end of the season. It has been a great learning lesson.”
Savaiinaea wants to develop as a “heavy-puncher.”
“[I need to be] able to be a heavy-puncher guy. I want to put my hands on guys and be aggressive. I really struggled with [that],” Savaiinaea said. “That’s something I need to fix throughout this offseason.”
Savaiinaea added that he wants to improve his hand-quickness and power.
“Being able to be quick with my hands. Being able to get power. Power is the No. 1 thing,” Savaiinaea said.
The Patriots are off to the Super Bowl under HC Mike Vrabel, who was brought in last offseason following his time as the Titans’ head coach from 2018 to 2023. New England C Garrett Bradbury said Vrabel brought a different kind of approach, taking time to get to know his players as people before diving into the Xs and Os.
“For Vrabel to have the awareness to say, ‘Listen, we’re going to take 45 minutes, and instead of talking ball, we’re going to find out who we are,’ that was so rewarding,” Bradbury said, via Chad Graff of The Athletic. “You play better, you play harder when you know the guys you’re going to war with. So to take some time to know who that was going to be, I think that was so rewarding.”
Patriots WR Kayshon Boutte also thinks the organization’s turnaround under Vrabel started last offseason.
“I think it started there,” Boutte said. “When you know what the guy beside you went through in order to be here today, it makes you want to play for him more. So it all started with Vrabel.”
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