Matthew Judon made sense for a New England Patriots team contending for a playoff spot. But for a four-win squad set to rely on either Jacoby Brissett or rookie Drake Maye at quarterback and with major questions facing both sides of their line, an unhappy 31-year-old pass rusher in search of a pay raise was a difficult fit.
This is not a bad deal for the Atlanta Falcons, who acquired the four-time Pro Bowler Wednesday evening for the reasonable price of a third round pick. Atlanta has a clear opportunity the Patriots do not. With a stable quarterback — two, in fact, after signing Kirk Cousins and drafting Michael Penix Jr. eighth overall — and a weak NFC South, the Falcons are primed for their first playoff appearance since 2017.
The Patriots, on the other hand, will almost certainly extend their streak of winless postseasons that dates back to a Super Bowl 53 win over the Los Angeles Rams. Despite this, trading Judon was the right move.
On the surface, the swap feels like another housecleaning measure from a team that only wants to remember the six Super Bowl rings of the Belichick era. Judon, after all, was the crown jewel of a 13-man 2021 free agent class that saw New England outlay a very un-Belichick sum into the hundreds of millions of dollars on the open market. With Wednesday’s deal, only two of those players remain on new deals — Hunter Henry and Kendrick Bourne.
In reality, it’s a strategy that stems from the Belichick playbook, Specifically one page that says it’s better to move on from a veteran a year too early than a year too late and another that suggests there’s no use throwing good money at a lost cause.
The Patriots were going to be bad in 2024, with or without Judon
New England had a four-win team in 2023 and retained several key members of that roster — Henry, Bourne, Mike Onwenu, Christian Barmore, Rhamondre Stevenson, Kyle Dugger, Jabrill Peppers and more. That kept the bright spots of the roster intact.
Unfortunately, it didn’t address the team’s gaping holes with immediate solutions. The team’s starting tackles are some combination of Pittsburgh Steelers castaway Chukwuma Okorafor, third round rookie Caedan Wallace, Vederian Lowe and Calvin Anderson. The wide receiver group will rely heavily on NFL role players and rookies, with Bourne, Demario Douglas, Ja’Lynn Polk and K.J. Osborn looking like the top four.
With that kind of talent at key positions, it’s no wonder the passing attack looks like this:
Patriots QB team periods
Brissett: 11 for 20, TD, 6 sacks, 3 drops, 2 INTs (not his fault)
Maye: 5 of 8, 8 sacks, fumbled snap w/MafiTeam total: 16 for 28, TD, 2 INTs, fumble, 14 sacks, 3 drops
The pass protection was just atrocious.
— Greg A. Bedard (@GregABedard) August 13, 2024
Brissett, who has generally been a useful plug-and-play starter in his NFL career and third overall pick Maye have been left to twist in the wind, leaving any step forward with their offense swiftly accompanied by six screeching, panicked steps backward in the face of a relentless pass rush.
This made things clear; for the Patriots to win games this season they’d need to depend on their defense. The returns of Judon and 2023 rookie sensation Christian Gonzalez from injury would help. Still, the holes at cornerback and in the pass rush — New England blitzed more than 35 percent of the time but generated pressure on only 20 percent of opposing dropbacks and ranked sixth-worst in the NFL when it came to sacks — would take more than that to fill. When Barmore was ruled out indefinitely due to blood clots, it seemed to be the football gods levying their verdict on the 2024 season.
That’s OK! Or, maybe not OK, but it presents a way forward for a team staring down one of the league’s hardest schedules.
New England wasn’t one player away from contention in 2024, even one as good as Judon. This is a team still facing massive gaps in talent. The front office’s general distaste for signing big name free agents — they currently have the second-most salary cap space in the league, per Over the Cap, with more than $44 million left to spend — suggests this year was always going to be a gap year, a tryout for the young guns who didn’t get extensions this offseason to prove they belong.
The flip side to that is perhaps the Pats were waiting for a star player to hit the trade market and transform the roster, using that cap space to fortify a top-of-the-market contract extension. Instead, Brandon Aiyuk’s reported dismissal of a deal with New England should inform everyone around the franchise just how difficult luring big names will be going forward.
Either way, the clearest way to build this team back into a contender is through the draft, where the Patriots just improved their odds at the top overall pick. There’s no sure thing quarterback waiting, which isn’t necessarily a problem for a team that drafted Maye four months ago. New England’s need for help makes a trade back from a top spot — another Belichick hallmark — an appealing way to bolster a promising foundation buried under a pile of rubble that was burned to ash, scattered by one tornado and then returned home by a derecho.
Gleaning a third round pick that will likely land in the late 80s of next year’s draft helps, but the draft position gained by throwing Keion White and Oshane Ximines into the breach may be even more valuable. The Patriots had little to gain in 2024 and no use for a disgruntled Judon, especially after his three productive seasons with the team. Dealing him made sense for all parties; the Falcons get a much needed pass rusher, Judon gets to chase a Super Bowl ring and New England gets worse for the right reasons.
That doesn’t mean 2024 will be any prettier for Patriot fans. It just means the 2025 offseason might be.
