Patriots: Deshaun Watson trade price will be ‘too high’ but who cares?

No price tag should dissuade the Patriots from trading for Deshaun Watson.

The upcoming wild card weekend took a backseat in terms of being the focal talking point of the NFL landscape when it was reported that Deshaun Watson was bothered by the Houston Texans’ hiring process for their former general manager vacancy — which was filled by, for what it’s worth, someone who came directly from the New England Patriots.

After listing names of potential candidates that intrigued him and some of his teammates, the franchise neither considered nor consulted with those whom he validated. In fact, Watson reportedly wasn’t even aware that Houston intended on hiring Nick Caserio as its new general manager.

These rumblings have many insiders within league circles pondering that Watson might request a trade if he continues to grow dissatisfied with the organization’s direction — they just won four games and have minimal draft capital and salary cap space to improve their roster thanks to the previous front office regime.

A trade for a superstar of Watson’s caliber would obviously cost a bounty of draft picks, but when you consider that he’s arguably a top five player at the most important position in the sport, the New England Patriots should really not let anything dissuade them from pulling the trigger.

The Patriots admittedly have more holes to fill than quarterback, but acquiring Watson would change the entire outlook of their franchise. Think about it for a moment. If they were able to win seven games with Cam Newton averaging less than 180 passing yards per game and throwing for just eight touchdowns, they’d most definitely break the double-digit win mark with Watson with a roster constructed as-is.

For the season, the three-time Pro Bowler ranked first in both passing yards (4,823) and yards per attempt (8.9), second in passer rating (112.4), third in completion percentage (70.2%), fourth in interception percentage (1.3), fifth in first downs (221), and seventh in passing touchdowns (33).

On top of that, he contributed 90 carries for 444 yards and three scores with his legs, meaning he compiled 5,267 total yards this season, which accounted for a whopping 83.5% of the Texans’ offense or the highest of any player in the NFL.

Taking all of these numbers into account, Watson became Pro Football Focus’ highest-graded quarterback (92.5), which was the third-highest mark of any quarterback to fail to make the playoffs since 2006.

We could go on rattling off stats that prove Watson is a premier player at his position, but you probably get the point. The Patriots’ biggest question mark heading into the offseason is at quarterback and trading for the 25-year-old stud should be a no-brainer decision, regardless of the Texans’ asking price, if he is made available.

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