Despite coming off a productive two-year stretch to open his NFL career, DeMario Douglas failed to find similar success in his first season under head coach Mike Vrabel and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
Between 2023 and 2024, Douglas had started 14 total games and was on the field for almost 60% of the New England Patriots’ offensive snaps when healthy. In 2025, he started exactly zero games and played a mere 27% of snaps. He furthermore registered career-lows in targets (55) and catches (39).
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What was the problem? For Douglas, the adaptation to a new system under McDaniels proved to be a challenge. Fast forward a year, and he finds himself in an entirely different position.
“I feel way more comfortable. Last year, I was really just getting the feel of it. Not really much of going through it,” Douglas explained after the Patriots’ ninth training camp practice on Tuesday. “Josh and [Todd Downing], they’ve been doing a great job of sitting us down and letting us break down the option routes.”
So far in his fourth training camp, Douglas has been a fixture among the Patriots’ starters. Predominately lining up in the slot, he has been a heavily-featured part of the passing game alongside fellow top-level wideouts A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs.
That did not happen by accident. In fact, Mike Vrabel believes it is a logical continuation of his 2025 season.
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“I think the most impressive thing was that he was ready, whether he got 12 snaps or he got 30 snaps,” he explained. “I think some of his best plays were his ability to not catch the football and go and finish. He made plenty of plays for us, but his attitude remained really good. I know that every receiver wants to get the ball more.”
This spring and summer, Douglas has been getting the ball on a fairly regular basis. While Brown and Doubs continue to build their chemistry with quarterback Drake Maye, the former sixth-round draft pick is feeding off their first two seasons together.
Now entering his third year with Maye, he says that a variety of reasons played into this development — from finding a routine that works for him, to maximizing his own 5-foot-8, 185-pound body, to turning into one of the veterans in the room. Add a player deeply invested in his craft and his team, and you get the 2025 version of DeMario Douglas.
“The team means everything to me,” he said. “It’s my family away from my family. I have their back, and I know for sure they have my back. I’m only one call away. I make sure I get to know all of my teammates’ names, just in case. you never know what may happen; if we depart I’m only one call away. …
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“I don’t work hard for nothing. I try to relay it to the game. In the offseason when we work out, I make sure that I’m competing against myself and somebody else — somebody else that wants to get better than me. I feel like I just have to keep working and it shows on the field. “
The results thus far have been promising, but Douglas will need to keep building on them. He did, after all, spend last year’s training camp as the top slot receiver as well. We all know how that turned out.
That said, is seems to be a clear difference between both his own and the team’s approach to his role this time around.
“I think we will continue to try to find ways for Pop to help us and then look at where he can continue to improve,” said Vrabel. “But nobody cares more about the team than Pop Douglas. I think that shows by the way he plays.”
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