Recapping all of the New England Patriots’ trades so far
The New England Patriots have been making a ton of trades ahead of roster cuts. We recap and analyze all of their latest moves.
The New England Patriots — without looking it up — probably are more active on the trade market than any other team in the NFL on an annual basis.
The Patriots understand how to properly collect draft picks and use the picks they’ve collected to bring in veteran players on the cheap.
The Patriots are also not afraid to trade premium draft choices for players who can help them in a bigger way, but for the most part, the savviest moves they make go unnoticed by a large portion of NFL fandom.
What are the Patriots up to ahead of roster cut day in 2019? More of the usual.
They are making one trade after another it feels like, and have brought in a number of players to round out their offensive line depth as well as collect some future draft choices in the mid-late rounds.
I want to take a look at each individual trade, then try to look at all of their trades as one big trade so we can see what they’ve done in more of a big picture form.
Trade #1
This is a pretty fascinating trade, and the value the Patriots gave up speaks to what they think about Eluemunor’s potential in their offense as an interior player.
Bill Belichick does not just hand out fourth-round picks, even if he’s getting back a six in return.
The fact that New England gave up this high of a pick for Eluemunor tells you everything you need to know about what the front office and coaching staff thinks of him.
A fifth-round pick in 2017, Eluemunor is probably just starting to get his NFL feet under him.
He was not recruited to play college football, but wound up at Lackawanna College in Scranton, PA. No word on whether or not he did an internship at Dunder Mifflin while he was there.
After putting some nice things on tape there, Eluemunor was recruited by just about every major program and committed to Texas A&M.
His journey from London, England to the NFL has been a fascinating one and the Patriots appear poised to cash in on his development.
Trade #2
With all of the transition on the offensive line for New England, the team needed a new swing tackle and they got a player with some promise here in Korey Cunningham, who has played both right and left tackle in the 2019 preseason for Arizona.
Trade #3
This trade is intriguing to me. The Patriots have done well to find defensive backs in recent years, and right now, there was just not enough room for Dawson. He is now a roster depth casualty but because he didn’t play when healthy last season for New England, this is a rare low sell for Belichick & Co.
Dawson has talent. He may have been over-drafted in the second round in 2018, but he has talent to possibly play a nickel role for the Broncos.
It’s not unprecedented but it’s rare to see a second-round pick traded this quickly into his NFL career. The Patriots perhaps felt like they could not use Dawson this year and going forward, and maybe Bill Belichick believes Vic Fangio’s staff can get the best out of him.
Trade #4
It’s rare to see an in-division trade, even more rare when the Bills are truly helping the Patriots out here with David Andrews’ injury.
Bodine can play, and while the Bills don’t necessarily need him, that doesn’t mean they had to help out a division rival. I guess it was worth a sixth-round pick to them.
The Patriots’ third trade for offensive line depth gets them possibly a starting center for this season and certainly a top backup at the position.
If you wash out the sixth-round picks changing hands here, the Patriots gave up:
CB Duke Dawson
2020 4th-round pick
2020 7th-round pick
And reeled in:
OL Jermaine Eluemunor
OL Korey Cunningham
OL Russell Bodine
When the dust settles, we’ll be able to take a look at exactly what sixth-round picks are changing hands, but the Patriots used the extra sixth-rounder they acquired in the Jermaine Eluemunor, essentially, as a chip that flipped between a number of other teams.
Next. Big names on the move via trade?. dark
Bill Belichick, although he missed the mark on the Duke Dawson pick, continues to win at the game of chess.