The New England Patriots should be one of the biggest players of the offseason when free agency officially begins in mid-March, but they are also expected to make some splashes in the trade market.
Aaron Schatz of ESPN on Friday, Feb. 21, projected that the Patriots will trade quarterback Joe Milton III ahead of next season.
“There could be interest around the league in Milton because of the overall weakness of this year’s quarterback draft class,” Schatz wrote . “The rookie showed promise in Week 18 against the Bills’ backups with a 72.4 QBR. If New England can turn three more years of a sixth-round pick into four more years of a third- or fourth-round pick, that’s usually going to be a win for a roster. Especially when the only playing time Milton had during the regular season was a finale game against backups because the Patriots already have their quarterback of the future in Drake Maye.”
New England has needs just about everywhere across the roster, so adding another mid-round pick could have even more value than what Schatz described considering how much help the Patriots need at so many different positions.
The franchise also leads the NFL with more than $125.5 million in salary cap space as of Sunday. That figure should jump to around $150 million when the league enacts a salary cap hike for all 32 squads of between $22-$26 million in the coming weeks.
That kind of money to spend has the Patriots leading conversations for some of the top wide receivers who could become available next month, including Tee Higgins of the Bengals — currently the prize of that position should he escape a second consecutive franchise tag in Cincinnati. A Maye-Higgins pairing could prove one of the league’s best QB-WR duos over the course of the next five-plus years.
