4 things to know about Patriots second-round pick Keion White
White wasn't originally a defensive end. He also held an interesting job in college.
The New England Patriots opened Day 2 of the NFL Draft by bolstering their defensive line.
They selected Georgia Tech edge rusher Keion White in the second round with the No. 46 overall pick. White, 24, is considered a big edge rusher at nearly 6-foot-5 and 285 pounds.
Here are four things to know about White.
He’s a former tight end.
White hasn’t always strictly played defensive end.
Playing high school ball in North Carolina, White actually started off playing center and linebacker. He eventually moved to tight end and defensive end, but colleges were more impressed by his play on offense when he was a recruit.
White committed to Old Dominion, an FCS school, as part of its 2017 recruiting class and redshirted that season. He played in eight games at tight end as a redshirt freshman in 2018, recording 11 receptions for 124 yards over those contests.
White, a two-star recruit as a tight end coming out of high school, decided to switch to the defensive position he played in high school during the spring of 2019.
The decision to switch positions and play defensive end immediately paid dividends for White. He had 62 tackles (19 tackles for loss), 3.5 sacks, one forced fumble and even an interception in his first full season at defensive end.
He hasn’t played much football over the last few years.
Even though White is 24 and has played football since he was five, he’s still a bit raw — at least at defensive end.
Following White’s solid first season playing defensive end, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the 2020 FCS season to be pushed back to the spring of 2021.
White didn’t stick at Old Dominion for the postponed season, opting to transfer to Georgia Tech. But White’s debut at Georgia Tech was delayed because he broke his ankle in a freak accident while playing pickup basketball.
“I jumped up in the air. I came down, and there was a T-shirt on the baseline. I slipped on the T-shirt into the wall,” White described the incident to The NFL Draft Bible at the combine. “My ankle went sideways. I actually put it back in place myself right there, because I thought it was just dislocated. ‘OK, it’s dislocated, just put it back.’ And it was more than dislocated for sure.”
White eventually played in the 2021 season after missing the first eight games, but he was reportedly only “60 percent” when he played in the team’s final four games that year. He recorded just a half-tackle in those contests.
For the first time since 2019, White was able to play a full season in 2022. He ended up having a big year, recording 54 tackles (14 for loss) and 7.5 sacks.
Oh, and White’s basketball playing career is done until his football days are over, he told The NFL Draft Bible.
He has a curious mind.
In a pre-draft profile by The Atlanta Journal-Constiution’s Ken Sugiura, former Georgia Tech defensive line coach Larry Knight shared that White didn’t take notes during meetings, but asked many questions.
“At first when I was coaching him, I was annoyed because you’re up there talking, he’s not writing,” Knight told Sugiura of White.
Knight revealed that White would ask questions about not only his role, but what his teammates should do when the defense was running a certain scheme.
Those questions though showed what type of motor White had, according to Knight.
“What really sticks out is the fact that he was a guy that valued self-improvement,” Knight told Sugiura. “I never had to push him to get better at this or get better at that. He’s going to ask the right type of questions, and he improved on his own. So that made him pretty easy to coach.”
He worked as a Domino’s delivery driver and has an interest in property acquisition.
White was looking to have some extra money in his wallet when he was a student at Old Dominion. So, in addition to playing football, he picked up a job delivering pizzas for a Domino’s franchise near the school.
“I just like having extra money,” White told Georgia Tech’s athletics website in a profile done on him in September. “I’ve always had a ‘fix-your-own-problems’ mentality.”
White drove a 2004 Chevy Tahoe to deliver pizzas and still has the patented Domino’s delivery driver polo as he held the job for over a year.
When White left Old Dominion, so did his career of working in the food industry. But he kept holding outside jobs beyond playing football at Georgia Tech. He worked as a construction estimator and later had a financial analyst internship at McKenny’s Inc., a facility construction, operation, and maintenance company located in Atlanta, according to his LinkedIn.
White said he “definitely” has plans in property acquisition as he begins his NFL career.
“I have to assess the numbers of where I stand contract-wise and then go from there. But definitely the goal is to be financially free,” White said in a conference call after the Patriots selected him. “I feel like I use that to play football better. So the more financially free I can be, the better I can play football, because I’m not really worried about what will happen to get to the next contract or whatever, I can just go play free and run around on the field.”
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