After an unproductive first season in New England, JuJu Smith-Schuster was believed to be on the Patriots’ roster bubble. The team has already reached the endpoint with the 2023 free agency pickup.
The Pats are releasing Smith-Schuster on Friday, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport. This will give the former Steelers and Chiefs pass catcher a chance to land with a team early, though the seven-year vet did not establish any momentum during an injury-marred 2023 slate.
While the rearranged Patriots front office has acknowledged quality work on Bill Belichick‘s part by extending or re-signing many of the players acquired during the legendary HC’s tenure, the Smith-Schuster acquisition will go down as a big miss. The Pats gave the former 1,400-yard receiver a three-year, $25.5MM deal that came with $16MM fully guaranteed. Smith-Schuster’s full 2024 base salary ($7MM) was guaranteed, putting the Pats on the hook for a notable dead money hit.
New England will be tagged with more than $9.6MM in dead money this year, with an additional $2.6MM set to count on the team’s 2025 cap sheet. Offset language would cut into these penalties, but after a dismal showing in 2023, Smith-Schuster is unlikely to fetch too much on the open market.
Mentioned this offseason as a potential release candidate, Smith-Schuster is coming off a season involving knee trouble. The former Steelers second-rounder underwent knee surgery following Super Bowl LVII and said he was around 60% going into last season. It showed, as the USC alum produced 29-catch, 260-yard stat line in 11 games. Smith-Schuster commanded the same full guarantee as four-year Pats contributor Jakobi Meyers, but the Raiders have made out better with their 2023 signing.
Smith-Schuster said this offseason he is fully healthy, putting a bounce-back season on the radar. Though, this early-August release pours some cold water on that prospect. That said, Smith-Schuster is still just 27. A team surely will take a flier on the eighth-year performer, as he has submitted quality work in the not-so-distant past.
The Chiefs missed Smith-Schuster — well, his 2022 version — last season, seeing its receiver group submit an uneven season that ultimately did not derail a second straight Super Bowl title. Smith-Schuster led the 2022 Kansas City championship team’s WR corps in yardage by a wide margin, accumulating 933 during his one-and-done season in Missouri. The Chiefs pursued Smith-Schuster for two offseasons, convincing him to leave Pittsburgh in 2022, but Andy Reid said the team’s 2023 offer was not particularly close to where the Patriots went.
The Steelers coaxed the best version of Smith-Schuster back in 2018, a season that doubled as the AFC North club’s final effort with Antonio Brown. The 215-pound wideout totaled 1,426 yards; two years later, he helped Pittsburgh to a surprising AFC North title with a nine-touchdown showing. Smith-Schuster resisted a Chiefs pursuit in 2021, re-signing with the Steelers on a one-year deal. Given his original team’s receiver situation following the Diontae Johnson trade, it would not surprise to see a reunion emerge as a possibility.
This is a rather interesting conclusion on the Pats’ part, seeing as Belichick would regularly bring back former players whose higher-priced deals did not work out elsewhere. The Eliot Wolf-led regime is now the team cutting the cord on a bad investment, and this transaction will almost definitely lead to Smith-Schuster landing elsewhere on a lower-cost agreement.
As for the Patriots, they have made efforts to acquire Calvin Ridley and Brandon Aiyuk. Ridley joined the Titans, who offered more money, and it is not believed an Aiyuk deal — despite a Pats extension number north of $28MM AAV — will happen. The team is counting on Kendrick Bourne returning from an ACL tear and used a second-round pick on Ja’Lynn Polk. The team also has intriguing second-year target Demario Douglas as a regular. Though, this receiving corps does not inspire too much confidence going into the season.
woah
Steelers could do a lot worse than bringing back JuJu. Like trading for and paying Aiyuk 30MM
Although his 1400 yards in 2018 look like an anomaly, he still could be a decent 4th option Wideout. He had over 900 yards with KC 2 years ago and getting out of NE and into a competent offensive system could do him wonders
Seems like a bunch of teams could use him. Atlanta just lost a receiver. Washington’s slot competition looks wide open.
But if you can’t make NEs WR roster, you aren’t very good.
Or the QB play is just bad there.
SF??? hahaha
I’d like to see the Steelers bring him just so certain media can call him a thug for having a TikTok account.
You can say Mark Madden
I could but…whatever opinion Madden has, Tim Benz will have a day later, so…it became plural.
Thugs don’t have their bicycles stolen!
He sucks ass
Had they made this move last year, Belichick would probably still have a job. DropDrop is not a quality receiver
Belichick would still have been fired. That’s the product of getting smoked by Dallas, swept by Miami, shut out at home twice, and having a home game flexed out of Monday Night Football.
I think he’d be a solid 3 in Philly after AJ and Slim. There’s marginal talent there and there wouldn’t be much pressure as if he went to say Pittsburgh or Atlanta where the expectation might outweigh ability
Didn’t think they’d do it but makes sense. Too landing spots should be Titans, Raiders, and/or Panthers. Hopkins is hurt and will miss multiple games, Gallup just retired in Vegas and panthers need all the weapons they can kidnap I mean get for Bryce
Clearly most of you haven’t seen him play sadly his career is over his knees are shot and can’t catch the ball anymore if he’s smart take the 7m and retire well he can still walk
Remember when pats fans thought the Mac/JuJu combo was “taking back the East”? Pepperridge Farms remembers
Stabby is once again spewing false BS.
Excellent rebuttal
Chargers?
His mouth always wrote checks his hands couldn’t cash. He was always hyped by the Steelers and himself (mostly) as one of their best, but he didn’t deserve any of it. Sometimes these receivers don’t realize that they aren’t very good by themselves, but need to be part of a receiver combo. This dude was never going to be the number one guy, but was decent as an auxiliary piece. He could be the number one guy, but only if no one covered him, he could stop running to catch the ball and most importantly if the NFL legalized Stick-um again.
His knees are gone.
If it’s really knees, then JuJu should move to fourth receiver with fewer reps and fewer hits. He’d be a dangerous fourth receiver.