Patriots Fans Will Love How Matthew Judon Described Versatile Defense

Matthew Judon might have just provided the New England Patriots defense with a nickname heading into the 2023 NFL season.

“We have unicorns, for real,” Judon told reporters after Tuesday’s minicamp practice at Gillette Stadium, which proved to be the team’s final session of the offseason.

Patriots fans surely will remember the “boogeymen” from 2019. It featured the linebacker trio of Dont’a Hightower, Jamie Collins and Kyle Van Noy with Stephon Gilmore locking down the outside en route to Defensive Player of the Year and countless other contributors like safety Devin McCourty. It was a group built on both versatility and depth.

Judon clearly believes the same could be in store for this New England unit.

“We’ve got a guy like (Kyle) Dugger who can play on the line of scrimmage, at linebacker depth, he can play at corner, but he’s a safety. And we’ve drafted players that can play from nose (tackle) to middle linebacker,” Judon highlighted. “Then we’ve got big, rangy corners (like first-rounder Christian Gonzalez), to the corners like Marcus Jones where he played three, four different positions on each different unit — offense, defense and special teams.”

Jabrill Peppers and Adrian Phillips are additional chess pieces for the group while Jalen Mills is expected to have a versatile role in the defensive backfield, as well. Peppers, who earned emphatic praise from Bill Belichick on Tuesday, also touched on how the group could present so many different looks to challenge offenses.

Judon believes that could present a good problem for the Patriots, too.

“You’ve got to get those players on the field, right?” Judon said. “And our coaches do a great job of finding any way to get those players in different packages on the field and put them in situations where they can compete and they can win, and that’s what they’re doing. It’s not unusual for that to happen, but it’s unusual for us to have these type of players like that.”

Fortunately for the Patriots, those aforementioned players are not mythical creatures.