What to make of the Patriots’ lack of action at the NFL trade deadline
The NFL trading deadline, as it normally has been historically, was a dud.
COMMENTARY
If we really wanted to breathe some life into this year’s NFL trading deadline, how about this scenario?
In case you haven’t heard, various reports have hinted over the last week that this could be 42-year-old Tom Brady’s final season with the New England Patriots. Maybe he’ll retire. Maybe he’ll play for somebody else. Maybe team owner Bob Kraft will give him Brady the contract that he’s posturing for, and we can finally put all this conjecture to bed where it belongs.
But it would have been delicious theater if the Patriots could have worked out a deal with the likewise undefeated San Francisco 49ers, trading Brady to the team he grew up rooting for, straight up, for old friend Jimmy Garoppolo. Then we could all just sit back, wait, and hope for a Super Bowl match for the ages, Brady vs. Belichick for the right to call himself the true architect of the Patriots’ dynasty.
That truly would have been something.
Instead though, here’s Nick Folk.
The Patriots didn’t end up making any trades prior to Tuesday’s 4 p.m. deadline, but they did make the decision to cut so-so kicker Mike Nugent only to replace him with fellow, mediocre veteran Folk, who last played in the NFL in 2017 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In fact, Folk’s final game in the NFL was against the Patriots, a 19-14 New England win during which the Bucs kicker missed all three field goals he attempted.
Yikes.
And so, wide receiver Mohamed Sanu turned out to be the only player of significance picked up prior to the deadline, arriving in New England for a second-round pick headed to the Atlanta Falcons The Pats also sent Michael Bennett to Dallas for next to nothing last week in order to balance the harmonious flow in the Patriots locker room.
The team was rumored to be in on a number of fronts as the deadline hours ticked away though.
There was Tampa tight end O.J. Howard, who might have helped solve the Patriots’ tight end needs for the immediate and distant future. The Bengals were shopping Tyler Eifert, an oft-injured tight end who is now mired for good in the mess that is Cincinnati. Some of the more absurd suggestions included Giants lineman Nate Solder and Jets running back Le’Veon Bell, both of whom would have caused a frozen slush migraine in terms of balancing cap space in order to fit in.
“We wouldn’t have enough cap space right now to just go out and acquire any player that was available regardless of what the price was in terms of compensation,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said Tuesday morning. “Any team would have to have enough salary cap space to acquire the new player. If you didn’t, then you would have to release a player to pick that up and there’s certainly a lot of limitations to releasing players, especially vested players and so forth where you really don’t gain much cap space from those kinds of transactions.”
So, the NFL trading deadline, as it normally has been historically, was a dud.
Not that the days leading up to it didn’t feature enough movement. Sanu came to the Patriots, the 49ers got Emmanuel Sanders from the Broncos, Jalen Ramsey whined his way into the Los Angeles Rams’ locker room, and Kenyan Drake joined the rotating door of running backs in Arizona.
Howard would have been the most significant move for the Patriots to make in their post-Gronkowski world. The 2017 first-round draft pick has only been targeted 18 times this season in a Tampa offense that rotates around receivers Chris Godwin and Mike Evans, and might have provided a key cog in the Patriots’ satisfactory-yet-worrisome offense.
I know, it’s hard to complain about many facets of the 8-0 Patriots, especially with a defense emerging as one that might go down in history (only to be tested once its Punch-and-Judy schedule is finally over with). But if there is a weakness, it resides on the offensive line, where blocking has been an issue for OL czar Dante Scarnecchia to deal with yet again. The Patriots are rushing for 92. 1 yards per game, an average that is only 23rd-best in the NFL. The team lost center David Andrews before the season with a blood clot in his lungs, and left tackle Isaiah Wynn went on injured reserve after Week Two. That has helped lead to sophomore running back averaging only 3.3 yards per carry.
“You could say we’re going to struggle for a long time,” offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said Tuesday, “But we had stretches last year where we certainly didn’t run the ball very effectively.”
That switch seemingly flipped during the second half when Michel turned into a capable back who was pivotal in the Super Bowl run. It could be a recipe followed this season as well, particularly with Wynn eligible to return to practice.
Scarnecchia also always seems to have some sort of way of pressing his unit into a diamond during the second half of the season, reason enough the team wouldn’t rush into any stupid moves at the deadline. After all, remember the disaster that was the 2014 offensive line?
As for Folk, well, the best thing about him might be that he’s not Nugent.
During last weekend’s win over the Browns, Nugent missed one field goal and had one another blocked, his second and third misses in eight attempts. If he should be remembered for anything during his short tenure here, it should be getting criticism over the reliable Stephen Gostkowski to quiet down to a mute.
It was enough for Belichick to bring aboard a guy who was in the AAF (whatever that is) earlier this year, making 12 of his 16 kicks in eight games with the Arizona Hotshots.
In other words, hope that the offensive line gets better sooner rather than later so the Patriots can make “going for two” a regular part of their repertoire.
Remember when Belichick elected not to give young pup Gostkowski a shot at a 49-yard-field goal in Super Bowl XLII? Well, imagine if the Patriots are chasing perfection, yet again, and the coach has to look at Nick Folk in a similar situation.
Maybe then, we’ll have a revisionist look back on the trading deadline and try to figure out what went wrong. Maybe.
But it’s the combination of Brady AND Belichick making that run that will truly make it great theater. With Nick Folk playing a starring role?
Well, at least there’s something we didn’t expect on an otherwise dreary deadline day.
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