There is a good chance the Patriots got significantly better this week with the trade of veteran Pro Bowl pass rusher Matthew Judon to the Falcons for a third-round pick.
Oh, no, not better for the 2024 season or a hellacious schedule against elite QBs and passing attacks, the kind of situations which call for a player of Judon’s specific set of skills.
Nope. The 2024 Patriots got markedly worse with Judon and his contract-desiring circus sent packing to Atlanta.
But the future Foxborough football squad – in 2025, 2026 and beyond? – oh there is little doubt that it has a more optimistic future after shipping arguably New England’s best defensive player out of town.
Come again?
Is this one of those Homer Hart columns? A water-carrying reminder of 18 years spent working for Robert Kraft’s organization? You can take the analyst out of Patriots.com but not the Patriots.com slant out of the analyst stuff?
Nope. Just objective analysis from afar with a long-term view.
The harsh reality – one pounded home this week by A.J. Brown and the Eagles on the joint practice field – is that the 2024 Patriots were going to be a bad football team without or without Judon. With him in the mix, ESPN projected New England to earn the No. 1 overall pick in next year’s draft.
And some rather handsome writer even suggested this spring that a ZERO-win season could be in play for Jerod Mayo’s team.
At the age of 32 – Happy Birthday! this Aug. 15. – Judon is not part of the long term plans in Patriot Nation. His timeline doesn’t marry up with Drake Maye’s development, Mayo/Alex Van Pelt/DeMarcus Covington settling into their jobs or Eliot Wolf having the time to retool a roster that had way more holes at critical spots than could be filled in one offseason.
Oh, and by the way, Judon was clearly a distraction and one that could have grown into an all-out problem if he didn’t get the new, lucrative deal that he so emotionally and obviously desired. Judon was a vocal, energetic leader who was popular with his teammates, media and fans alike. He had the potential to be a negative for the team that’s trying to build a new culture and develop young leaders and playmakers across the depth chart.
That’s not an issue now.
Now, Wolf has an extra Day 2 draft pick to utilize, a third-round selection that's more than most would have expected in return for an aging, disgruntled pass rusher coming off an injury.
Now, Wolf will have the most salary cap money in football next spring to spend on fast-tracking a rebuild, especially after rolling over unused cap dollars from this go-nowhere season.
Now, Wolf can cruise toward another top-5 draft pick, maybe even a better road to the No. 1 overall pick that he could then deal for “the bag” to a QB-needy team.
Now, guys like Josh Uche, Anfernee Jennings and Keion White will have plenty of chances to prove their worth and step up in Judon’s absence.
If you were listening and paying attention, Mayo told us all last month that he was leading a long-term rebuild in New England, that measuring success in 2024 really has nothing to do with wins and losses in 2024.
“A successful season, in my eyes, is really about the foundation,” Mayo said before the opening of his first NFL training camp as a head coach. “Have we put together a good foundation of a combination of young and older players to really start competing? It would be great to get up here and say we’re going to win a Super Bowl, but once again, it’s about the process. I tell the guys all the time, it’s about process and progress and moving forward.
“We're going to go to work each and every day, and we're going to get better. We're going to put a good product, a good team out there on the field that you'll be proud of. Now, whether that's tomorrow or next year, I don't know.”
The Judon trade simply emphasized those words with actions. It’s not tomorrow. Or next month. But it could very well be next year.
Judon is gone. In the long term, the Patriots should be better off for the trade.
The 2024 team, it obviously lost one of if its most talented, productive, vocal players and leaders.
Not only is that OK, it’s actually a good thing.
So, that little distraction out of the way, now we can all get back to our regularly scheduled August programming in terms of worrying whether the No. 3 overall pick Maye is indeed the right guy for the franchise QB job in New England!