FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The New England Patriots announced today that they have re-signed DL Daniel Ekuale as an unrestricted free agent and signed P Corliss Waitman as a free agent. Terms of the contracts were not announced. Waitman spent time on the New England practice squad in 2021.

   Ekuale, 29, has spent the last two seasons with New England. The 6-foot-3, 305-pounder originally entered the NFL as a rookie free agent with Cleveland in 2018 out of Washington State. He spent the majority of his rookie season on the practice squad before making the 53-man roster in 2019. After being released by Cleveland at the end of training camp in 2020, he signed with Jacksonville to the practice squad before being signed to the 53-man roster in late September. Ekuale was released by Jacksonville on Aug. 31, 2021 and signed with New England to the practice squad on Sept. 5, 2021. Overall, he has played in 38 regular season NFL games with five starts and has registered 36 total tackles and five sacks.

   Waitman, 27, originally entered the NFL as a rookie free agent with the Pittsburgh Steelers out of South Alabama on April 28, 2020. The 6-foot-2, 210-pounder spent the 2020 season on the Pittsburgh practice squad. He was released by Pittsburgh on May 3, 2021 and was signed by the Las Vegas Raiders on July 26, 2021. Waitman was released by the Raiders at the end of training camp on Aug. 23, 2021 and was signed by New England to the practice squad on Nov. 23, 2021. He was signed by Pittsburgh to the 53-man roster from the New England practice squad on Dec. 25, 2021 and played in two games with the Steelers. After being released by Pittsburgh, he was claimed off waivers by Denver and played in all 17 games with the Broncos last season. Overall, he has played in 19 NFL games and had 103 punts for 4,835 yards for a 46.9-yard average.