The Patriots fielded lots of calls for trade offers during today’s trade deadline, but two of the bigger names on their roster reportedly received no interest. According to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, teams called New England to take the temperature on pass rusher Josh Uche, safety Kyle Dugger, and tackle Michael Onwenu, while quarterback Mac Jones and veteran running back Ezekiel Elliott didn’t receive any nibbles.
Uche, Dugger, and Onwenu are all facing contract-years, so they all held a decent chance of being dealt. Uche was reportedly the most likely, per NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo. After a couple quiet years to start his career, Uche burst onto the scene in 2022, combining with Matt Judon for half of the team’s 54 sacks last year. Mike Dugar of The Athletic reports that the Seahawks held serious interest in Uche “with talks going pretty deep,” but ultimately, landed Leonard Williams from New York instead. With Seattle filling their defensive line need with Williams, Uche will remain in New England.
As will, Jones and Elliott. It’s unclear how serious the Patriots were, if at all, about seeking trade partners for the two offensive contributors. The team will face a fifth-round option decision for Jones before next year, while Elliott will become a free agent at the end of the season.
Here are a few other rumors from around the AFC, starting out West:
- It was a similar scene up in Mile High, where the Broncos decided not to move any of their potential trade assets due to a lack of serious interest. While the team reportedly did receive offers on players like receivers Jerry Jeudy and Courtland Sutton, they didn’t gauge the offers as good enough to move on, per Jordan Schultz of Bleacher Report. Mike Klis of 9NEWS relayed that the team is “confident in its group of players.” While it seemed the team may be willing to dive into a rebuild, beating a sick Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs may have convinced them otherwise.
- Remaining in the West, the Raiders were unable to find a buyer for wide receiver Hunter Renfrow, to little surprise. Las Vegas gave Renfrow a big-money extension after his Pro Bowl season and has diminished his role severely ever since. So far this year, Renfrow has been on the field for over half of the Raiders’ offensive snaps in only three games. According to Vic Tafur of The Athletic, the remaining guaranteed money in Renfrow’s contract prevented any teams from fully following through on their interest in the veteran receiver. With Renfrow staying put and the many sources shooting down reports of wide receiver Davante Adams wanting out of Vegas, according to Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Raiders stood pat at the trade deadline.
Now, the question for New England is whether they want to take the comp pick for Uche or commit to signing him. Judon is getting up there and will be coming back from injury, so finding an edge defender to start taking over is a priority. Uche hasn’t built on last year’s success as well, but at this point the Patriots may as well figure out where their limit is in terms of offering him a contract and see if he’ll take it at season’s end.
As for Renfrow…McDaniels is publically bemoaning his lethargic passing offense with a Pro Bowl wide receiver sitting on the bench. I don’t care if he “doesn’t fit the scheme”, Josh, put him on the field. This isn’t even mentioning the high profile trade meant to reunite Adams with his former quarterback, only to kick that quarterback unceremoniously out the door and be left with Adams too having questionable utilization. I know that Florio has decided that this is Garappolo’s fault, but none of the Raiders’ quarterbacks have moved the ball. Garappolo did it better than the other two, but it’s hardly just a quarterback issue. The run game is terrible, the blocking is terrible, and the receivers are dropping passes.
Even in that Bears loss, I was actually impressed by how well Hoyer was throwing the ball. Less impressive was how many times his receiver ran the wrong route or dropped the ball, or how often he got pressured. For an offensive coach with such success with slot receivers in New England, McDaniels is being severely inflexible with one of the best while his offense is struggling. It’s mindblowing that there isn’t even an attempt to utilize Renfrow more. How hard is it to even just let him run a few improvisations a game (as Renfrow used to do extremely effectively under Gruden, and Kelce does as well in Kansas City)? What does McDaniels have to lose?
Well, his job, apparently.
Surprised anyone would ever expect an offer for Mac Jones, other than the Raiders
Yet the dumbass sheep Patriots fans still keep making excuses for Jones….. wake up! He sucks and all the other teams know it.
DaVante Adams is dumb if he doesn’t want out of the dumpster fire, oops, I mean the Raiders