Well, Mike Vrabel has consistently said that he, Ryan Cowden and Eliot Wolf would continue trying to find ways to improve the roster.

Apparently, releasing another veteran and former captain was part of that plan with nine days to go before the opener.

Adam Schefter first reported on Friday afternoon that the team had released safety Jabrill Peppers just two days after he had made the initial 53-man roster. Peppers is 29 and spent the last three seasons with the Patriots, providing an edge on the field and some solid leadership off it.

Last year, Peppers played in just six games though, dealing with both injury and some legal troubles. He finished with one interception and 20 solo tackles.

For his career, Peppers has played in 99 games (85 starts) with seven interceptions six forced fumbles, seven fumble recoveries and 511 tackles with 5.5 sacks. He was also arguably the best communicator the Pats had remaining in the back end.

This is another sign that Vrabel wants to have his team truly be his team. Each of the 2024 captains are no longer with the organization and Kyle Dugger is seemingly hanging by a thread with this new regime. While many have talked about how different Peppers’ job would be in this new defensive scheme under Terrell Williams, this move was still pretty surprising, given the lack of veteran leadership and experience on the back end for this young unit and it certainly thrusts rookie Craig Woodson and Jaylinn Hawkins into more prominent roles now. Woodson and Hawkins have been solid in training camp, but things will obviously much different once things get real next Sunday against the Raiders. Brendan Schooler and Dell Pettus could also be asked to take on bigger roles as well.

The former Don Brown disciple at Michigan shouldn’t have much trouble finding a spot on a team that needs some good veteran leadership and more importantly, some thump in the run game.