The Patriots will wrap up their 2026 preseason slate in Cleveland Thursday night. As the preseason comes to an end, so do roster battles. Here are three roster spots to be won in Thursday night’s contest.

Fifth cornerback spot

The top of the Patriots cornerback depth chart is set in stone: Christian Gonzalez, Carlton Davis III and Marcus Jones hold the top three spots. Additionally, Charles Woods, who played well last year on special teams and as a rotational cornerback, has acted like the team’s fourth cornerback all summer long.

With teams traditionally carrying five corners, the final roster spot is still to be won. To me, there are only two players in the running: Karon Prunty and Kindle Vildor.

The Patriots took Prunty in the fifth round of the 2026 draft, despite being a player who was projected to go undrafted. The Wake Forest product has proved the critics wrong and has had a strong summer. Prunty has looked good in coverage throughout training camp and carried that success into both preseason contests.

If the Patriots do not want to bet on the upside of the rookie, they could look to play it safe with the veteran Vildor. The 28-year-old has plenty of NFL experience, appearing in 12 games for the Buccaneers last season. After a slow start of camp, Vildor has turned things around.

Vildor has also made plenty of plays on the football, intercepting Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson in the team’s first preseason contest and nearly picking off two passes in the following game.

Fourth defensive tackle

The Patriots’ depth at defensive tackle, once viewed as a strength, has quickly turned into an area of concern for the team. Milton Williams, Christian Barmore and Cory Durden are locked into their spots as the team’s top three interior defensive linemen; however, no one has emerged for the fourth spot.

Joshua Farmer, a player the Patriots traded up for in last year’s draft, has shown signs of the player the Patriots hoped for him to be, but has been too inconsistent to firmly win the role.

The same can be said for Leonard Taylor III, who had a great second preseason game, but has not shown it enough in camp. Eric Gregory and Jeremiah Pharms Jr., the two other players competing for the spot, have also had inconsistent summers.

All four of those players are good pass rushers, but to play consistently in Mike Vrabel/Zak Kuhr’s defense, you need to be able to stop the run. This spot feels like a position where the team could branch out and sign a free agent.

Third tight end

Similar to the fourth defensive tackle spot, the third tight end role is a spot I could see the team adding to. Tanner Arkin emerged early in camp, showing his strength and blocking abilities against Patriots starting defenders. However, he has since cooled off and has taken less and less snaps with the first team as each week passes.

C.J. Dippre and Jack Westover have not done much either, but still have a puncher’s chance to make the roster. One of the three players will have to stand out in Thursday’s game to not only crack the initial 53-man roster, but survive waivers and make it to week one.

If the team had to finalize their roster today, I believe they would keep Arkin and then the following day claim a tight end on waivers and then subsequently release Arkin.

To prevent this from happening, Arkin needs to show out not just as an inline blocker, but as a fullback. With the team not playing starters, fullback Reggie Gilliam has sat out the first two preseason games. This meant Arkin had to take the snaps at fullback, an unfamiliar position. Arkin’s performance, through two games, has been subpar.