Patriots Actively Shopping S Kyle Dugger

Patriots safety Kyle Dugger lived up to his second-round draft status very early in his New England career. As a result, the team signed him to a four-year, $58MM extension in 2024. Despite that commitment, the Patriots are actively shopping the safety out for a trade, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network. We knew the team was open to trading him, but actively shopping him is an escalation.

Coming out of Division II Lenoir-Rhyne, it said a lot that the Patriots were willing to make Dugger the second safety selected in the 2020 NFL Draft as the fifth pick of the second round. With Duron Harmon getting traded in the offseason and Patrick Chung opting out of the season due to COVID-19, Dugger was named the primary backup to starting safeties Adrian Phillips and Devin McCourty as a rookie.

By Year 2, Dugger was a full-time starter, breaking onto the scene with four interceptions and 100 return yards. He followed that up with a career year in which he nabbed three interceptions, returning two for touchdowns in 2022. That year, Pro Football Focus (subscription required) graded him as the 11th-best safety in the NFL.

PFF fell out of love with him after that season, though. In 2023, he had another productive season, intercepting two more passes and racking up 109 tackles, including a team-leading 71 solo tackles. That year, PFF graded him as the 68th-best safety in the NFL out of 95 players graded at the position. 2024 saw a year of decline for Dugger. Missing four games and seeing decreased production, Dugger graded as PFF’s 95th-best safety out of 98 players graded last year.

Per Rapoport, the new staff views Dugger much differently than the staff that extended him last April. As a result, Dugger has been seen playing deep into preseason games — when most starters and veterans have been safely removed from play — and had been taking second-team reps in training camp. The work with the second team defense was due in part to his recovery from a tight-rope surgery done to repair a high ankle sprain, but Dugger is reportedly fully healthy yet still, seemingly, on his way out.

When news broke that the Patriots were gauging trade interest for Dugger and outside linebacker Anfernee Jennings, the replies seemed to indicate that Jennings was drawing interest while Dugger’s new contract served as an obstacle for moving him, per Jeff Howe of The Athletic. It’s no wonder, considering how much impact the contract has on his ability to be cut.

If the Patriots were able to trade Dugger, they would be left with only $4.5MM in dead money and open up $10.76MM in cap space. If they can’t find a trade partner, though, it will be interesting to see if they cut him instead. Cutting Dugger would result in $14.25MM of dead money while only opening up $1.01MM of cap space. It’s hard to picture the team releasing the veteran in a move that would financially hamstring them that much.

So, it appears, they’ll continue to shop him out. They may have to find ways to make the trade more enticing by including draft picks or paying some bonuses to Dugger before the trade so that the receiving team is only responsible for base salary. Regardless, it feels as if Dugger may not have a place in New England as the staff actively works to shop him out.