The Patriots passed the torch on special teams from a legend with a Hall of Fame resume to an up-and-coming coverage ace this season.

After 16 terrific seasons with 10 selections to the Pro Bowl, franchise icon Matthew Slater retired from the NFL following the 2023 season. Slater, who is back with the organization as a special assistant to head coach Jerod Mayo, left big shoes to fill for New England's special teams units.

Luckily, Slater spent his final two seasons mentoring the next great coverage ace for the Patriots in third-year pro Brenden Schooler. Schooler should now take Slater's place as the special teams ace at this year's Pro Bowl, and the stats and film back that up. According to Pro Football Focus, Schooler has the third-highest special teams grade in the NFL, with an elite 90.7 grade. The 27-year-old has seven special teams tackles, a forced fumble, and a blocked punt this season.

If you don't want to take our word for it, we asked someone who knows a thing or two about standout special teams play. During the bye week, Slater spoke to Patriots.com about his protégé, putting his support behind Schooler for Pro Bowl and All-Pro accolades.

"I'm biased, but I think he's the best [special teams] player in the NFL," Slater said of Schooler. "The tape speaks for itself. That's the greatest compliment you can pay any player. Doesn't matter the game. Doesn't matter the phase. He's having an impact. When I think about the Pro Bowl and these things, it's the guys who go about the process the right way, respect the game, and impact the game week in and week out, even when other teams know that they're going to do that. This guy does that as well as anyone in our league."

"It's built around him. Special teams is the ultimate team thing, team concept. But when you have a player like that, you try to highlight him and use his strengths as much as you can. We're fortunate to have a game-changer like him. We're going to do a lot of things to try to put him in position to make plays because we know he can. We build a lot of what we do around [No.] 41," Slater continued.

To fully document the mentorship between Schooler and Slater, we must go back to Schooler's rookie season. Schooler made the initial 53-man roster as an undrafted rookie in the summer of 2022, following a standout preseason where Slater recalled it was clear the former Texas Longhorn would be sticking around as the next-in-line coverage ace.

"As a rookie, to come in and really catch on so quickly to what we were doing was really impressive. Then he went out in the preseason, and it felt like he was making a play in every game. But I don't think that was by accident. I think you saw the way he prepared himself that this kid might be special," Slater reminisced. "Once we were two games into the preseason, it became pretty evident this guy's gonna be around here in some capacity."

For Schooler, the opportunity to learn from one of the all-time greats on special teams was one he relishes to this day. The current Patriot points out that Slater still gives him pointers in his first season on head coach Jerod Mayo's staff.

"You talk about someone who's been more than just a mentor, a friend, a teammate, an example, and a leader for not only the team but for myself. To be able to be part of such a unique and special friendship that we have and a bond that hopefully will last longer than I play football here, it's just been incredible," Schooler said. "He has taught me more about life than anything, which I think relates back to football in a lot of ways that people don't understand."

"Just him teaching me the approach to the game mentally in the film room and on the field. I still try to emulate that and still try to pick up those little nuggets that he continues to drop in meetings. He showed me how a true pro approaches the film room, how he approaches practice, and how he approaches pre-game. Just being a little fly on the wall and seeing how he does everything," Schooler explained.

One thing that separates Schooler from others is how much attention he gets from opposing teams. Every week, Schooler sees double and even triple teams. When he's not fighting through multiple blockers, Schooler is registering the fourth-highest play speed this season at 22.4 MPH on a punt he forced a fair catch on, per NextGen Stats, so opponents make sure to put multiple blockers in his way. Schooler turns to Slater for advice on how to manage the extra attention he gets on a weekly basis.

"I think it was Seattle this year. They had three guys trying to block me, and I've never seen that look before. So, on the field, I'm trying to diagnose how I want to do this and get off the field, and he's like, 'Oh, I've seen this before. This is how you need to attack it,'" Schooler said. "Those quick in-game adjustments where, next time they brought out that triple team, I knew exactly what to do. Having him out there, even on the sidelines where we can make adjustments like that in the game, has been monumental for me."

Due to all that extra attention, Schooler's production isn't where he hoped it would be this season. But, when you turn on the film, you see his impact. Speaking from experience, Slater explained how challenging it is to be the center of attention in the kicking game every week.

"It's a challenge. I can only imagine what it's like sitting in those other teams' meetings all week. I'm sure that that's the guy that they're talking about. I'm sure the guys that are playing against us get tired of hearing about it, so they're coming out charged up, ready to go," Slater told me. "Teams are going to make it hard on him the rest of the time he's playing the National Football League because that's the type of player he is. We spent a lot of time talking about the technical things and the things that are going to give him a chance to defeat all the attention that he's getting."

Slater pointed to one specific example where all the hard work on learning how to manage double teams paid off in a game. In Week 1, Schooler had three special teams tackles in a 16-10 upset win over the Bengals.

"He went down, defeated a double team, knocked a guy down, and then went and chased down a great returner and made a play. But it really, to me, encapsulated the effort, the determination, the aggression, the speed, all the physical tools that we talk about, the ability to finish. It encapsulated who he is as a player," said Slater.

When you ask around the Patriots facility about their favorite Schooler play, you'll get several different answers. When asked about his favorite Schooler moment, another popular answer is the opening kickoff of overtime in the Patriots loss to the Titans in Week 9. After losing the OT coin toss, New England purposely kicked the ball short to give Schooler a chance to stick the returner, which he did, forcing a fumble. Unfortunately, the ball bounced right to Titans LB James Williams for the recovery.

"He almost turned the game around. The ball was out, and we just didn't get the bounce," Slater said. "When the game is on the line, you trust your big-time players to make plays. Certainly, we had a lot of faith that he would go down there and impact the game."

Earlier this season, Schooler signed a three-year contract extension to remain with the Patriots beyond this season. According to special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer, 30 coaches around the league reached out when the news broke to compliment Schooler's play.

"I had 30 coaches around the league tell me, 'Hey, that's really good that you locked him up' because I can tell you right now, if we didn't do that, he was going to go somewhere and get locked up for a pretty big amount of money," Springer said. "He's a phenomenal leader and a phenomenal guy for us. He deserves every penny of it."

Although his main focus is on turning the Patriots around, Schooler acknowledged that being named a Pro Bowler is one of his personal goals, and it seemed to have stuck with him that he wasn't selected to the Pro Bowl in his first two NFL seasons.

"Those are the goals you set at the beginning of every year. You have your team goals, and you have your personal goals. That is definitely one of the personal goals that I have is [to make the] Pro Bowl and All-Pro every year. That's the standard I have for myself," Schooler said. "Would it be awesome? Absolutely. Would I be super happy? Yes. But understanding how this season has gone so far and the amount of double teams that I've drawn, it hasn't been the season that I've wanted production-wise. We'll see what happens."

When it comes to postseason accolades, name recognition and stats can often hold more weight than the film. Understandably, most football fans aren't combing through the All-22 every week to evaluate special teams play across the NFL. However, it's apparent from the attention he receives every week that Schooler is among the league's elite special teamers. Furthermore, although he'll receive these accolades for his play on special teams, it doesn't hurt Schooler's case that he has also carved out a role in the Patriots defense in their 'Longhorn' package.

New England began using Schooler as a quarterback spy in a Week 10 victory over the Bears, where he logged a sack and quarterback hit, chasing down Bears QB Caleb Williams. Schooler registered his second career sack playing a similar role in the defense vs. the Dolphins two weeks later, showcasing his open-field tackling ability on defense.

The Patriots have a long history of special teams standouts making the Pro Bowl. One year after his retirement, Slater passed the torch to another deserving core special-teamer in Schooler. As the Pats legend said, the tape speaks for itself. Now, Patriots nation must speak for Schooler by voting him to the Pro Bowl.

DISCLAIMER: The views and thoughts expressed in this article are those of the writer and don't necessarily reflect those of the organization. Read Full Disclaimer