Hello, goodbye
With Stefon Diggs now out after a year, where does he rank on the list of all-time Patriots’ one-and-done players?
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Stefon Diggs saw his New England career come to an end this week when news broke that the Patriots would not be bringing him back for the 2026 season. That means the receiver joins an illustrious cast of one-and-done players with the Patriots. With some help from you guys, here’s my list of the top 10 New England players who spent a single season with the Patriots since 2001.
10. Kick returner/running back Cordarrelle Patterson: One of my personal favorites, and one of the most impactful returners in franchise history. No one was as confident in his skills as Patterson, who could take it out of the end zone even if there were 11 guys bearing down on him. In 2018, the Patriots were unexpectedly thin at running back, so Josh McDaniels placed him in the backfield and he ran for a (then) career-high 228 yards, and a more-than-respectable 5.4 yards per carry. He was also a fun quote: After he rushed for 61 yards in a win over Green Bay (up from 38 yards the week before against the Bills), I asked him where he thought he improved most. He waited a second before responding, “Yards. Probably rushing yards.” I got to know him a little bit, and after Super Bowl LIII, he said to me in the locker room, “We couldn’t have done it without you, man.” OK then.
9. Wide receiver Brandon Lloyd. In 2012, the quirky veteran — a favorite of McDaniels when McDaniels was with the Rams — had 74 catches for 911 yards and four touchdowns. But it was clear Lloyd walked to the beat of a different drummer. He spent the next season out of the league, and came back for one more year with the Niners before retiring. After leaving football, he’s made some interesting career choices. He also went into acting briefly, including taking on a role in a zombie movie. And he was also the subject of one of my favorite sports photos of all time.
8. Offensive lineman Brian Waters. I never saw a guy get dropped into the middle of a team eight days before the start of the season and not miss a beast. The offensive lineman, who was signed just prior to the start of the 2011 season, was moved from left to right guard, and started every game for a team that made it to the Super Bowl. He finished with a Pro Bowl nod, the last of his career. Honestly, it was like he had been in New England for the last 10 years. He played 97 percent of the offensive snaps (second only to Tom Brady), and was an absolute key part of the offensive line. The strange thing was that just as suddenly as he arrived, he left: He didn’t report in 2012, and many of us in the media assumed it was contractual, but no reason was ultimately given. He ultimately played part of the 2013 season with Dallas, but retired soon after that.
7. Defensive end Chris Long. Long, who was part of the 2018 team, was distinguished as a guy who had a long and successful NFL career, but was never able to land a ring to that point. (He ended up with two, winning with the Eagles the next year.) I’ll let my pal Chris Hogan explain why Long was such a great player and teammate for that one year with the Patriots.
“He came to New England, this dude just wanted to win. And he wanted to win so bad. … He was just fun. He wasn’t just a defensive guy. He mixed it up with everyone. Everyone loved him. New England loved him,” he said. “And he was just a damn good football player, and just gave everything he had to that team and got a Super Bowl out of it.
“Chris just loves the game of football, man. I mean, it’s in his blood, right?” added Hogan. “He’s been around the game since he was born into this world. And you could just tell, he just loved football. He loves competing and talking shit. Wearing that Julian Edelman printed face mask [to] keep it light.
“Chris was really good, man. Like the guys, the guys that like take their job professionally … very, very seriously, but also they’re not assholes, right? You want to go get a beer with them, right? You want to go out to dinner with them or just hang out off the field just because they’re just cool people. And Chris, Chris was for sure one of those guys.”
6. Linebacker Bryan Cox. Whew buddy. The Bryan Cox Experience, even for one year, was something else. By 2001, the linebacker was at the stage of his career where he had pissed a lot of people off (including when he flipped double birds to the City of Buffalo before a game against the Bills), but like Long, just wanted to win a ring. That September, he told us in the media in no uncertain terms he was not going to go out if his way to praise Peyton Manning and the mighty Colts, and then, he went out and proved it by knocking Jerome Pathon into next week, setting the tone for the game, as well as the rest of the season. Every reporter should be lucky enough to cover a guy like Bryan Cox for at least one season.
5. Wide receiver Brandin Cooks. He posted impressive numbers in 2017 — 65 catches, 1,082 yards, 7 touchdowns — as part of an elite offense. Three things to keep in mind here: one, teammates (including Brady) absolutely loved the guy. Two, he had a nickname -- “The Archer” — that felt kinda forced. And three, he was traded for a first-round pick twice in his career: In 2017, New Orleans traded Cooks and a fourth-round pick to New England for a first-rounder. And in 2018, he was traded from New England to the Rams for a first-round choice.
4. Defensive tackle Ted Washington. Not the easiest fella in the world to deal with — getting him to say two sentences was considered a journalistic achievement worth celebrating — but for the 2003 season, he was an absolute legend when it came to stopping the run. He wasn’t the only reason why the run defense numbers were impressive compared to 2002, but it wasn’t coincidental. For whatever reason, the 6-foot-5-inch, 365-pounder — and those were conservative estimates — never really seemed to enjoy his time in New England, so it wasn’t a big surprise to see him move on after one year.
3. Cornerback Brandon Browner. Another guy who was an occasional challenge to talk with, but for that 2014 season, he served as the absolute perfect complement to Darrelle Revis, bringing a more physical presence that contrasted with Revis’s smoother style. (That’s setting aside the fact that the two may or may not have had a fistfight late that season.) Browner, who was one of the most penalized players in the game through this stretch, has run into a ton of legal issues since he left the game.
2. Wide receiver Stefon Diggs. There might be some recency bias here, sure. But the fact of the matter is that you can’t write the story of the 2025 Patriots without putting Diggs in the first paragraph. He helped get Drake Maye to the next level, served as a leader for group of young (or otherwise inexperienced) wide receivers, and provided enough of a spark with his sloganeering that allowed the team to believe in itself. There’s the very serious real-world baggage that the franchise had to deal with when it came to the veteran wide receiver, but in the end, from an on-field standpoint, he did what they brought him in to do.
1. Cornerback Darrelle Revis. Pairing one of the best cornerbacks in league history with someone like Bill Belichick was downright diabolical, and the final piece of a championship puzzle in 2014. Loved to watch him work on a daily basis during training camp; he didn’t let you too far inside when you were talking to him, but from our vantage point up on the hill, it was easy to see why he was a first ballot Hall of Famer. Off the field, Revis was the consummate professional. He talked with the media once time during the week, and then, after each game. He answered every question, and treated the media with nothing but respect. (I remember him handling questions from student radio reporters and professional journalists with the exact same level of respect. Total pro.) It was a strange end — he sent his mother to collect his Super Bowl ring at the celebration — but he was without peer when it came to this class of one-and-done guys in New England. (Oh, and I loaned him my copy of “Collision Low Crossers” at the end of the season and I never got it back. The overdue meter is still running on that, my guy.)
(Also receiving votes: Garrett Bradbury, Reche Caldwell, and Mark Anderson. We’d also be remiss if we didn’t mention three favorites who just missed out because they returned — albeit very briefly — for a second season in Martellus Bennett, Donte Stallworth, and Andre Carter.)
Cool stuff I did this week.
• Hogan and I did a near-hourlong podcast this week that covered a bunch of stuff, including what the post-Diggs landscape will look like in New England, the idea of Alec Pietce vs. A.J. Brown, the combine, the latest NFLPA grades for the Patriots, and more.
• Also joined the crew from NESN’s “Boston Has Entered The Chat” to talk about the Patriots, Diggs, Pierce, Brown, and the rest of the NFL landscape.
• Talked Patriots with “Mannix & Mannix” on 96.3 The Big Jab as well.
• Lots of write about this week. I’m almost done with the positional analysis pieces ahead of the start of free agency.
• Quarterback.
• Running back.
We’ll have secondary and special teams up in the next couple of days.
Looking ahead.
• Put on an extra pot of coffee Monday, because the free-agent frenzy is set to begin. We have the tampering period between Monday and Wednesday afternoon, and the new league year opens Wednesday at 4 p.m. Make sure you follow along for all the latest updates here (Bluesky) and here (X).
One last thing.
.• I get the business of football, but the Patriots’ Media Good Guy Award is a legit curse, and you can’t tell me otherwise.
Dude was rock solid. Did everything the team asked of him and more. Smart, tough player. As others noted, this likely clears the way for Jared Wilson to take over at center.
Until next time.
