NFL Rumors: Patriots screwed over Jets on goal with first-round commerce
It’s not an thrilling NFL Draft with out some good ol’ original divisional rivalry back-stabbing. The Patriots did the Jets soiled on this one.
The AFC East is perhaps the chaotic evil division within the league: on one hand, you’ve got a tantrum-throwing and ankle-twisting quarterback hailing from New England, and over in New York, a notorious anti-vaxxer who hates the media as a lot as he hates the woke mob.
Throw in Mike McDaniel’s deadpan humor and the table-breaking bravado of the Payments Mafia, and also you get probably the most wildly entertaining division matchups which have but to be performed.
The pilot of this multi-season TV drama arc might have began within the 2023 NFL Draft, when the New England Patriots pulled the rug from beneath the New York Jets’ ft.
This story does come from controversial NFL analyst Jason La Canfora, and as with most of La Canfora’s studies, you don’t must consider it should you don’t need to.
In any case, La Canfora’s sources instructed him after the draft that the Patriots had an ulterior motive for his or her first-round commerce: Flip the hen to the Jets.
New England exchanged the No. 14 total decide with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the No. 17 total decide and a fourth-rounder. Accumulating an additional little bit of draft capital was good. What was even higher? Seeing their hated division rivals lose out on a prime prospect.
Patriots allegedly traded again in first spherical partially to mess with the Jets
With the 14th choice, the Steelers, who now picked one place forward of the Jets (NY had the No. 15 decide from the Aaron Rodgers commerce) took the highest remaining offensive deal with, Georgia’s Broderick Jones.
New York was reportedly eyeing Jones on the fifteenth spot however needed to pivot and accept a defensive finish, Iowa State’s Will McDonald as a substitute.
An anonymous source told La Canfora:
“They need to have had to surrender a [third-rounder] and never a 4 to maneuver up there. Belichick did it simply to f— the Jets. He bought low as a result of he knew the Steelers had been going to take the child the Jets needed to take. … I feel the commerce completely blindsided them. They had been scrambling.”
One other nameless supply additionally mentioned, “Invoice will attempt to screw [the Jets] over any likelihood he will get.”
Whew. That’s bulletin board materials for Rodgers and Co. proper there.
We’ll by no means know if the Jets had been really planning to take Jones with their first-round decide, or if Invoice Belichick was scheming to hit the Jets the place it hurts all alongside. It appears believable, certain, however one would assume the primary cause the Pats traded again was to build up draft capital.
Screwing over the Jets was simply icing on the cake.