MARCH 8: The Patriots are giving Okorafor a base value of $4MM on this deal, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets. Okorafor will receive $3.13MM guaranteed at signing, the Boston Herald’s Doug Kyed adds. The contract will max out at $8.25MM, which is just below what the veteran tackle would have made in the final year of his Steelers contract. This also checks in slightly less than the contract New England gave Reiff a year ago.
MARCH 7: Entering the week in the top three in terms of cap space, the Patriots will add a tackle before the free agent market opens. They are bringing in recently released Steeler Chukwuma Okorafor, per NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport.
The Steelers cut Okorafor, 26, earlier this offseason, doing so after benching the veteran right tackle during the 2023 season. While the Patriots should be expected to do more at tackle in free agency, Okorafor provides an early option for a team that struggled to keep its tackles healthy in 2023. It will, however, be interesting to see how this agreement impacts Mike Onwenu‘s free agency.
Okorafor signed a three-year, $29.25MM deal with the Steelers in 2022, staying on as the team’s right tackle. Two years into the deal, the Steelers demoted the veteran starter for first-round pick Broderick Jones. Okorafor started only seven games, being pulled after unspecified comments he made during the end of the team’s loss to the Jaguars. The Steelers benched him for their Week 8 game, going with Jones, and never turned back to the six-year veteran against last year.
A former third-round Steelers draftee, Okorafor made 59 starts from 2018-23. He served as the team’s primary starter at right tackle from 2020 until the mid-2023 benching. A Week 1 injury to Zach Banner moved Okorafor into the Steelers’ 2020 lineup, and he started the final 15 games for the AFC North champions that year. The Western Michigan alum did well to collect a midlevel RT contract two years ago, and the Patriots are giving him a bounce-back opportunity.
Last year, the Patriots tried to patch up their right tackle spot by giving aging blocker Riley Reiff a lower-end pact and adding ex-Broncos swingman Calvin Anderson. Neither option worked, and Reiff lasted just one game during a season featuring two IR placements. The Pats then moved Onwenu from guard back to right tackle, where he played as a rookie. That move may well help Onwenu’s free agent status, with the tackle market not especially deep. The Pats are believed to still want to bring back Onwenu, though this Okorafor pact could conceivably affect those plans. The Pats are viewing Okorafor as a potential starter, per the Boston Herald’s Doug Kyed.
New England has needs at both tackle spots, with LT Trent Brown due for free agency and likely to depart, and may need a guard as well. It is possible the Patriots could view Onwenu as a guard and attempt to re-sign him as such, but the former sixth-round find is expected to at least test the market. Okorafor could become a likely cost-effective stopgap, though if that is the case, the Pats will be expected to devote more resources to their left tackle and guard posts.
Typical pats move bargain shopping I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up with Mac qb1 with same trash wr and this kid will be the only addition to the ol
In the draft all they’ll do is keep trading down and drafting players that should be picked in 5th or 6th round but they’ll take them in the 1st and 2nd rounds
As for free agency they’ll use their cap space for D players and social teams players Kraft is just as cheap as BB was and is
Are you aware that Bill isn’t there any more?
You really think stuffs going to change it’s still all of Bill guys and Kraft is still the owner and cheap they are going to turn into the Red Sox’s last place team every year
Elliot Wolf is already changing their whole player grading system. And we’re only three years removed from their ridiculous spending spree.
How do u figure considering they free agency hasn’t even started or the draft we don’t know what kinda of players they want if he was real trying to thing then y didn’t or don’t he cut guys like Parker, Juju,Thornton and Schooler but instead release all L. Guy
Cutting Parker, Juju, and Thornton would barely save them any money and they have loads of cap space. And Wolf is on record about changing their grading system away from the specific one that Belichick used for years to a more traditional one.
Can’t hurt. Run it
He’s a serviceable lineman. He’s not horrible. He’s not great. He got in the doghouse here for a mental lapse on field that resulted in a bad penalty and never got his job back
I’m betting he’ll excel in New England