Will Campbell allowed 14 pressures in the Super Bowl, more than any player surrendered in any single game all season. The Patriots can call it a learning experience. They cannot call it noise.
That question framed the latest PFSN Football Debate Club. Doug Kyed said the concerns about Campbell at left tackle are valid. Jacob Infante argued they were blown out of proportion by everyone who tuned in for the first time in February. The tape sides with Kyed.
Why the Will Campbell Concerns Are Valid
Kyed’s first point is the one that matters most. This was not a one-game problem. “I would go with valid concerns just because it wasn’t just the Super Bowl,” he said. “It was also against the Broncos. It was against the Texans. It was against the Chargers, and obviously facing very tough pass rushers in all four playoff games.”
The numbers are brutal. Campbell allowed 29 pressures across New England’s four-game playoff run, the most in a single postseason in the Next Gen Stats era. Maye was sacked an NFL-record 21 times in those four games. When the competition got real, the rookie got exposed.
Kyed then connected it back to the scouting report. “He was coming off the knee injury, but it’s not as if this was the perfect clean prospect coming out of LSU either,” he said. “There’s the arm length concerns. There’s the wingspan concerns. There’s overall strength concerns.”
That through-line is the whole argument. The short arms and the shortest wingspan of any tackle at the combine in over a decade, the traits that worried evaluators before the draft, are exactly what bigger, longer playoff edge rushers attacked. An MCL sprain that cost Campbell four games down the stretch made it worse, but it didn’t create the problem.
The Case That Campbell’s Struggles Were Overblown
Infante didn’t pretend the playoffs went well. He argued the sample was too small. “I’d lean more towards blown out of proportion,” he said. “There’s no denying that Campbell was pretty bad in the playoff stretch. But what he showed in the regular season, that’s a larger sample size, I tend to stand with that.”
He has a fair point on volume. Before the injury, Campbell looked like the answer, and Infante leaned on PFSN’s own grading to make the case. “He finished third among all offensive tackles in PFSN O-Line Impact scoring,” he said. “There are a lot of other rookie tackles who performed worse than him. Josh Conerly, Josh Simmons, just to name a few. We’re not having those conversations.”
Infante isn’t wrong that other 2025 rookie tackles struggled in relative quiet. He just picked the wrong evidence to wave off four straight rough games against the best fronts Campbell will ever see.
The decision isn’t urgent. Mike Vrabel has already committed to Campbell at left tackle for 2026, and the kid is 22. But New England drafted Caleb Lomu in the first round in April, and the real referendum comes in 2027. If the strength and length issues that showed up in January are still there next winter, the Patriots will have a call to make, and Kyed will have been right to worry.
