New England Patriots Rumors & News - Pro Football Rumors

Patriots Sign Louisiana Tech QB J’Mar Smith

April 25th, 2020 at 7:04pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

The Patriots finally added a quarterback. After surprisingly opting not to pick a passer during the draft, New England has signed former Louisiana Tech quarterback J’Mar Smith as an undrafted free agent, per Tom Pelissero of NFL Network (Twitter link).

It was widely reported that the Patriots would be drafting a quarterback at some point, but that never materialized. It’s still unclear what exactly Bill Belichick is planning on doing to replace Tom Brady, and Smith certainly isn’t going to be the solution. As a redshirt senior and three-year starter at Louisiana Tech, he’ll at least bring plenty of experience. Smith had his best statistical campaign this past season, when he passed for 2,977 yards with 18 touchdowns and five interceptions.

A pretty mobile quarterback, he added 264 yards and another four scores on the ground. Smith is now only the third signal-caller on the Pats’ offseason roster behind Jarrett Stidham and Brian Hoyer. If they don’t add another veteran, he should have a decent chance of making the team or practice squad. The real question now is whether Belichick will go after a high-profile free agent vet like Cam Newton, trade for one like Andy Dalton, or stick with the in-house options.

Patriots Draft Kicker In Fifth Round; Still Haven’t Selected QB

April 25th, 2020 at 1:54pm CST by Zachary Links

The Patriots found a new kicker in the fifth round, selecting Marshall’s Justin Rohrwasser with the No. 159 overall pick. Rohrwasser is the first kicker to be selected in the 2020 draft. Meanwhile, they’ve yet to draft a new quarterback.

No one’s exactly sure what the Patriots are going to do under center as they get set for life without Tom Brady. Even though it would have been a very un-Bill Belichick move, some speculated that the Patriots could consider a bold trade up the board for the likes of Tua Tagovailoa or, more realistically, tapped a mid-round QB like Washington’s Jacob Eason. Instead, they’re holding off.

Even if the Patriots select a QB in the late stages of the draft, they’ll finish the weekend with Brian Hoyer penciled in as their QB1. That doesn’t mean their out of other options, of course. Former MVP Cam Newton and former No. 1 overall pick Jameis Winston are still available. There are also some notable arms available via trade, including longtime Bengals starter Andy Dalton.

Jets Trade No. 101 To Patriots

April 25th, 2020 at 8:17am CST by Ben Levine

There were a handful of trades last night after we signed off, and one of them included two division rivals. ESPN’s Field Yates reported (via Twitter) that the Jets and Patriots made the following swap:

Patriots acquire:

No. 101

Jets acquire:

No. 125
No. 129
2021 6th Round Pick

The Patriots ended up using their newfound third-rounder on Virginia Tech tight end Dalton Keene.

This was actually the second time on Friday that New England traded up to take a tight end. Earlier in the night, they acquire No. 91 from the Raiders and took UCLA’s Devin Asiasi. As many pundits have pointed out, this is the first time the Patriots have taken a pair of tight ends in one draft since selecting Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez back in 2010.

Ryan Izzo and Matt LaCosse are currently the only veteran tight ends on New England’s roster, so there’s a good chance the two rookies will see plenty of targets from Jarrett Stidham next season.

Patriots Trade Up To Raiders’ No. 91, Draft TE Devin Asiasi

April 24th, 2020 at 10:20pm CST by Zachary Links

The Patriots swung a deal to move up to the Raiders’ No. 91 overall pick, bringing them back into the third round.

Patriots acquire:

No. 91
No. 159

Raiders acquire:

No. 100
No. 139
No. 172

With the 91st pick, the Patriots selected tight end Devin Asiasi, their first offensive player of draft weekend. Asiasi offers speed and good blocking technique, but scouts say he needs to spend some time pumping iron in order to adjust to the pro game.

The UCLA product figures to play a key role for the Pats in 2020, but you can expect them to explore veteran options between now and the start of the season. Trey Burton, Jordan Reed, and Charles Clay are among the free agent tight ends still left on the market.

Ravens Trade No. 60 To Patriots

April 24th, 2020 at 8:21pm CST by Sam Robinson

The Ravens dropped out of the No. 60 spot in the draft, dealing the pick to the Patriots. New England’s quarterback situation remains unchanged, with Michigan outside linebacker Josh Uche being the Pats’ pick.

New England traded up from No. 71 and gave Baltimore one of its four third-round picks (No. 98) to do so. The Ravens sent the Pats a fourth-rounder (No. 129) in the deal as well. The Patriots now have three third-rounders; the Ravens are up to four.

Uche functioned primarily as a pass rusher for the Wolverines, totaling 14.5 sacks over the past two seasons. He will follow former Michigan teammate Chase Winovich — a 2019 third-rounder — to Foxborough.

The Patriots lost both hybrid pass-rushing cogs Jamie Collins and Kyle Van Noy this offseason and will have a younger edge corps in 2020. Winovich is certain to be a big part of that crew; his former teammate in Ann Arbor may become an important piece soon as well.

Patriots Draft Kyle Dugger At No. 37

April 24th, 2020 at 6:43pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

The Patriots went outside the box with their first pick of the 2020 draft, taking safety Kyle Dugger from tiny school Lenoir-Rhyne with the 37th overall pick.

Dugger was expected to go in the second-round so it wasn’t shocking, but he’s still a more under the radar prospect as a result of playing D2 ball. Dugger shined during Senior Bowl week, and began rocketing up draft boards as a result. He received all kinds of accolades during his college career, and was a second-team All-American in 2019 despite being limited to only seven games because of a hand injury.

At 24 he’s older than your typical draft prospect, and definitely comes with a lot of risk. Bill Belichick obviously thought it was a plunge worth taking, and it sounds like he’s got high upside. Bleacher Report’s Matt Miller listed Keanu Neal and Mark Barron as pro comps in a recent write-up.

Patriots Trading 23rd Pick To Chargers

April 23rd, 2020 at 9:56pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

We’ve got another trade folks. The Patriots are shipping the 23rd pick to the Chargers, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network tweets. Los Angeles will send back picks 37 and 71, Field Yates of ESPN.com reports in a tweet.

The Chargers used the added first-rounder to take Oklahoma linebacker Kenneth Murray. Los Angeles has one of the most talented defenses in the league on paper, with a top-tier defensive line and secondary. The one weak-spot was at linebacker, so Murray will help solidify an already promising defense.

The Patriots were previously without a second-round pick and weren’t scheduled to pick again until 87, so this move makes some sense for them. Unless they surprisingly trade back into the first later tonight, the Patriots won’t be taking Tom Brady’s successor in the first-round. The Chargers already made a splash by taking Justin Herbert sixth overall, and GM Tom Telesco is staying aggressive.

There had been some talk that New England could take Utah State passer Jordan Love at 23, but that turned out to be unfounded. There were reasons to believe Bill Belichick was leaning toward adding a signal-caller in the middle rounds, and that looks to be the case.

Gronk: I Told Tom Brady I Wanted To Play Months Ago

April 23rd, 2020 at 2:34pm CST by Zachary Links

Earlier this week, Rob Gronkowski came out of retirement and pushed the Patriots to trade him to the Buccaneers. Publicly, the tight end hid his intentions, but he says Tom Brady has known about his plans for a while now.

“We rarely talked about what his decision was gonna be, where I’m at,” Gronkowski said of their winter talks (via ESPN.com’s Jenna Laine). “But we did talk about [it] for one second. I told him that — we talked just real quick — like, ‘Hey, I’m kinda getting that fire underneath me again.’

“I said, ‘I’m definitely interested in your decision that you make.’ I didn’t put any pressure on him. I said, ‘If there’s a right opportunity out there, and you go somewhere and that opportunity is right – even if you go back to the Patriots and I feel like the opportunity is right – there’s a possible chance that I would definitely love to reconnect.'”

Brady, per Gronk, was “all fired up and juiced up” about the potential reunion. Now, they’ll look to pick up where they left off – the duo connected for 78 touchdowns across nine years together in New England. There should be plenty more to come, with better weather to boot.

Of course, this won’t be welcome news to fans in New England who were clamoring for Gronk last season. While the veteran’s 2018 campaign (47 receptions, 682 yards, three touchdowns) weren’t up to his normal standards, they still proved to be better than the numbers put up by New England’s tight ends in 2019. The Patriots got 36 receptions and two touchdowns from the trio of Ben Watson, Matt LaCosse, and Ryan Izzo last year.

Patriots To Sign Marqise Lee

April 23rd, 2020 at 10:01am CST by Rory Parks

The Patriots are signing wide receiver Marqise Lee, according to ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter (on Twitter). He’ll ink a one-year deal as he moves on to a new team in the AFC after spending the first six years of his career with the Jaguars, who released him several days ago.

New England, of course, lacked its usual offensive firepower in 2019, with veteran wideout Julian Edelman representing the team’s only reliable weapon for former QB Tom Brady. The Pats rode to the playoffs on the strength of their defense and special teams, and regardless of who is under center in 2020, they need to surround their signal-callers with more options.

The team will be returning Mohamed Sanu in 2020, but given that they gave up a second-round pick in this year’s draft to acquire Sanu, the Pats will be unable to take advantage of an unusually deep crop of collegiate receivers until the third round (assuming they don’t take a WR with the No. 23 overall selection). Sanu suffered a high ankle sprain during a punt return in his third game with New England, and he was not the same after that injury. He recently underwent surgery on the ankle, as it did not heal on its own as hoped.

Lee has battled his own injury woes over the past couple of seasons. A knee injury sidelined him for all of the 2018 season, and he battled ankle and shoulder maladies in 2019. But he totaled 1,551 receiving yards between 2016-17, leading all Jags targets in that span, and if healthy, he represents a quality vertical weapon who would nicely complement Edelman, Sanu, and second-year player N’Keal Harry.

No contract details are available at this time, but it is almost certainly a modest deal for the USC product, who hopes to reignite his career in Foxborough.

Zach Links contributed to this post.

Draft Rumors: Hurts, Giants, Jags, Tua

April 22nd, 2020 at 8:45pm CST by Sam Robinson

With the draft in less than 24 hours, several names have started to surface as potential first-round upsets. It would not surprise some around the league to see TCU wide receiver Jalen Reagor and Notre Dame tight end Cole Kmet end up as first-round picks, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com notes. The Eagles have surfaced as a Reagor candidate; the TCU product clocked two sub-4.3-second 40-yard dashes recently. The tight end class is not viewed to be nearly as strong, but an AFC coach said Kmet’s landing spot will likely be in the back end of the first round or start of the second.

Notre Dame pass rusher Julian Okwara and Ohio State cornerback Damon Arnette profile as players who could sneak into Round 1, per Pelissero. One exec compared Romeo Okwara‘s younger brother to an Anthony Barr type who could rush passers and drop into coverage. Julian Okwara registered 12 sacks over the past two seasons. Arnette would join Jeffrey Okudah as a first-rounder in this instance and follow a host of recent Buckeye corners by being a Thursday-night draftee. Arnette started 38 games in his Ohio State career.

Here is the latest from the draft world:

While Jalen Hurts is not expected to creep into the first round, Pelissero notes some NFL personnel believe he will go higher than most predict (Twitter link). So will Minnesota safety Antoine Winfield Jr., Pelissero adds. ESPN’s Mel Kiper has Hurts going off the board at No. 49 overall to the Steelers; Scouts Inc. grades the dual-threat quarterback as its No. 94 overall prospect. The Packers, Chargers and Raiders are among the teams believed to be interested. Winfield (29th per Scouts Inc.) is a second-generation NFLer, the son of former Vikings Pro Bowl corner Antoine Winfield. The younger Winfield intercepted seven passes last year and is also seen as a player who, like his father, could move into the slot.
Ex-Hurts teammate Tua Tagovailoa is “very well-regarded” in New England, per Tom Curran of NBC Sports Boston. However, Curran also believes the scenario NBC Sports’ Peter King suggested of the Patriots moving up to No. 13 (the 49ers’ slot) to draft a falling Tagovailoa doesn’t make much sense for the team, due to the Pats’ various other needs. Tagovailoa may now be back in play for the Dolphins at No. 5 anyway.
Buzz has surfaced about the Giants having a trade partner. While it is not certain the Jaguars are that team, Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports tweets several GMs have pointed to the Giants moving down from No. 4 and the Jags climbing up from No. 8. The Giants are believed to be serious about wanting to move down. Although the Jaguars are believed to be planning to give Gardner Minshew a legitimate opportunity, JLC speculates a move up would be for a quarterback.
This draft could well see five tackles taken in the first round. With Hall of Fame executive Gil Brandt listing Ezra Cleveland as a player who will go higher than expected, NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo adds that the Boise State tackle is a “mortal lock” to be chosen in Round 1 (Twitter link). The Browns were believed to be eyeing Cleveland, which would be a fun fit. If they pass on a tackle at No. 10, the Browns may need to consider making an early move back into Round 1 for the rising player.

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