Every week, Today’s Boston Globe Sports Globe sportscaster and columnist Christopher L. Gasper comments on a notable sports story in the segment “Write or Wrong?”
The Patriots’ trade of the man with the red sleeves represents a warning signal regarding the upcoming season.
The Patriots bit the bullet and finally found a solution to a sticky contract dispute with Matthew Judon, trade him to the Atlanta Falcons for a third-round pick on Wednesday. The Patriots let their best player go three and a half weeks before the season began. They knowingly and willfully weakened a defense they were counting on to carry them, a defense that was already missing defensive lineman Christian Barmore, who recorded a team-best 8.5 sacks last season.
Teams hoping to improve don’t do this kind of thing. Teams craning their necks in anticipation of a difficult rebuild do.
The message of Judon’s departure is that the Patriots have decided to prioritize winning for a talent-starved team this season in favor of the future. A four-time Pro Bowler, including two since joining New England in 2021, Judon was one of the team’s few top-tier talents. He plays a top-tier position: edge rusher.
Despite this discouraging reality, the Patriots chose to ship Judon out of town rather than re-sign him, as they had done with a dozen of his teammates. The failure to add Judon, 32, to that money-making roster precipitated Judon’s protests in practice, distracting and threatening the authority of rookie head coach Jerod Mayo.
The Patriots face a lot of glaring question marks with no obvious answers. They just created another one with the Judon trade. However, Mayo pointed out on the “Patriots Preview” pregame show on 98.5 the Sports Hub, which yours truly co-hosts, that the Patriots defense has generated pass rush in the past without having a player of Judon’s caliber.
“For a long time, we were able to generate pass pressure without a top-tier rusher,” Mayo said. “Chandler (Jones), he was a top-tier rusher. Judon was a top-tier rusher. But there were years where we didn’t have that guy, and we had plans. I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to do it.”
Whether that confidence is justified remains to be seen. The Patriots’ last coach also thought he could compensate for talent gaps with training programs. That didn’t go very well.
New England is expected to hit a new low this season. At Mayo’s introductory press conference in January, an optimistic Robert Kraft said he thought the team was “ready to give it their all” with its new football regimen.
The Judon trade was necessary to end his contract drama. But it’s another sign that things are going to get worse for the Patriots under this new regime before the team gets better.
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Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow him @cgasper and on Instagram @cgaspersports.
