Patriots long snapper Julian Ashby aims to keep a rare draft path from fading out

Julian Ashby enters his second NFL season as the New England Patriots’ long snapper with a job that rarely gets noticed until it fails. The position is built on repeatable fundamentals, and the Patriots’ scouting focus this offseason is essentially about whether Ashby continues to deliver consistent snaps that protect the team’s timing on punts and field goals.

Long snappers are infrequent draft picks, and Yahoo Sports noted that over the last decade only seven players at the position were selected. Ashby is one of them, brought aboard by New England on the third day of the 2025 NFL Draft. That matters because it suggests a deliberate investment in stability at a role that can quietly decide field position for an entire season.

Ashby’s profile is atypical for a specialist. He is listed at 6 feet 1 1/8 inches and 231 pounds, with a reported 4.94-second 40-yard dash and a 30-inch vertical jump, per Yahoo’s measurements. The same scouting piece also highlights his hand size and arm length, along with how the Patriots believe athletic traits translate into faster get-up times and improved movement as coverage evolves downfield.

Before arriving in the pros, Ashby’s path also included a position change. Yahoo Sports reported that he began his football career as a quarterback and later moved to long snapper, first at Parkview High School in Lilburn, Georgia. He then played at Furman from 2020 to 2023, appearing in 44 games, including a first-team FCS All-American season in 2023, before transferring to Vanderbilt for the 2024 season and adding 13 more games to his résumé.

The Patriots’ decision to draft Ashby turned into immediate trust. Yahoo Sports reported that he appeared in all 21 of New England’s combined regular-season and playoff games as a rookie. In a role where a single timing mistake can cascade into blocked punts, roughing penalties, or missed field-goal opportunities, the simplest stat is also the most telling: Ashby was on the field frequently enough to be the default option.

Specialists do not compete in isolation, and New England’s offseason roster picture suggests that even a “steady presence” still has to earn the job. Boston Sports Journal, in a 2026 NFL Draft preview focused on special teams, wrote that the Patriots added competition at long snapper by signing Niko Lalos, described as a defensive end-turned-long snapper, and suggested the two are expected to battle for the starting job in training camp.

The Patriots’ broader special-teams priorities appear to extend beyond snapping. Boston Sports Journal also pointed to punter as the team’s main remaining concern after Bryce Baringer’s performance in 2025, framing the position as something New England could address. In that context, Ashby’s offseason focus is not only on the snap itself but on the surrounding chain of operations that begins with protection and ends with coverage placement. If he maintains his precision while the unit’s other pieces settle, New England’s special teams can protect its floor even while it searches for improvements at the margin.