The New England Patriots signed offensive lineman Xavier Newman-Johnson to their practice squad Thursday, cutting rookie Jacob Rizy loose to open the spot three days before hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers, the team announced Thursday afternoon.
New England already patched its interior line once behind a banged-up Ben Brown, and this move suggests that patch job isn’t finished heading into Sunday’s home opener against the 1-0 Pittsburgh Steelers.
Newman-Johnson, 27, broke into the league in 2022 as an undrafted free agent out of Baylor, signing with the Tennessee Titans that May. Tennessee released him in October 2023, and the Jets scooped him up for their practice squad three days later.
Xavier Newman-Johnson’s Path to the New England Patriots
The offensive lineman turned his second chance into a career in the NFL. Newman-Johnson made New York’s 53-man roster for stretches of 2023 and for all of the 2024 and 2025 seasons, appearing in 25 games with four starts while working at left guard, right guard and center. He also weathered a scare in 2024, briefly going down on the Jets’ sideline with a neck injury before testing came back clean, and he closed out 2025 on injured reserve with a knee issue that ended his season early.
At 6-foot-2 and 297 pounds, Newman-Johnson carries 338 career offensive snaps into Foxborough. He showed the same range at Baylor, where he played 47 games with 37 starts across three interior spots over five seasons, including all 14 games at left guard in 2021, a year the Bears posted the best rushing average in the Big 12.
New England hosted Newman-Johnson for a Wednesday visit, one day after the Jets let him go on Sept. 15, ESPN’s Mike Reiss reported. Ben Brown, the interior backup working through a knee injury dating to the preseason, returned to a limited practice that same day, and rookie tackle Dametrious Crownover sat out entirely with a knee issue of his own.
New England Patriots’ Jacob Rizy Released
The corresponding cut belonged to Jacob Rizy, a 24-year-old undrafted signee out of Florida State who arrived in Foxborough this May. Rizy spent three seasons at Harvard before finishing his college career at Florida State, and he was waived at final roster cuts in August before returning to the practice squad. He has yet to appear in a regular-season NFL game.
New England’s decision favors experience over projection, dropping a zero-snap rookie in favor of a lineman with 25 NFL games under his belt, four of them starts, at three different interior spots.
The Jets, for their part, released Newman-Johnson and linebacker Jaden Keller from their practice squad Tuesday to clear room for cornerback Jordan Clark’s promotion to the active roster and three practice-squad additions in receivers Sterling Shepard and Tyler Johnson and safety John Saunders Jr. The team ties those moves to its own secondary and receiver needs, according to the Jets’ official release. Newman-Johnson, who logged 77 snaps in the preseason, became expendable practice-squad depth once those needs took priority in New York.
New England now carries a veteran with starting experience at center, guard and every emergency spot in between heading into a Week 2 home opener already shaped by injuries up front, with Brown’s knee status and Crownover’s absence both worth watching before kickoff Sunday.
Patriots Sign Former Jets 297-Pound Offensive Lineman Before Steelers Game