FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The New England Patriots have placed a heavy emphasis on special teams entering Sunday's home opener against the Arizona Cardinals, as it's an area in which the Cardinals have shown a knack for making game-changing plays.

This provides a nice springboard to spotlight one of the Patriots' more compelling individual storylines from the young 2012 season -- the unexpected rise of rugby-turned-football player Nate Ebner, the sixth-round draft choice from Ohio State whose draft-day selection was so far off the radar that analysts were tongue-tied to say anything about him.

Tom Brady had a hand for Nate Ebner (No. 43) and the defense after a fourth-quarter defensive stop against the Titans last weekend. Barry Chin/Getty Images

Yes, it's the same Ebner who played a team-high 22 special-teams snaps in this past Sunday's 34-13 season-opening win over the Titans, finishing with a team-high two special-teams tackles. One of those tackles was Larry Izzo-like, as he fearlessly surged down the middle of the field and dropped dangerous returner Darius Reynaud with a sound one-on-one open-field takedown.

Such plays, coupled with consistent work since he overcame injury to take the field in the second week of training camp, have caught the eye of some of the team's more established veterans.

"He's going to be an impact player and help the team out a lot," said linebacker Tracy White, now in the 10th season of a career in which he's carved out a niche on special teams. "He has good instincts and he's a hard-nosed player. From the way he goes about meetings and studies, he knows what he's doing. He's telling me things at times."

White recalled one play on the punt-protection unit from last week that reflected Ebner's veteran-like presence. The two line up side by side on the punt team, and in addition to communicating what they see in front of them, there is an element of them reading each other once the ball is snapped.

"He said something about what he saw -- I saw it, too -- and to hear it come from a rookie, it was surprising," White said.

In some ways, the Patriots' selection of Ebner was similar to what they pulled off in 2008 when they drafted UCLA's Matthew Slater in the fifth round. While other teams might have viewed the Patriots as reaching for Slater, who wasn't a front-line contributor on offense or defense in college, the Patriots had a specific special-teams type role in mind (Slater earned a Pro Bowl berth for special teams in 2011).

Ditto for Ebner, whose early impact in that area hasn't seemed to surprise coach Bill Belichick. It's been Ebner's solid work on defense, where he played just three snaps for Ohio State in 2011, that has seemingly come out of nowhere, as he had an interception in the preseason and was consistently around the ball in practice.