Musket Fire
FanSided

Could the Patriots make a trade for Bengals’ LT Jonah Williams?

By Lou Scataglia

FOXBOROUGH, MA - DECEMBER 24: Head coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots during the game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Gillette Stadium on December 24, 2022 in Foxborough, Massachusetts.(Photo By Winslow Townson/Getty Images)
FOXBOROUGH, MA - DECEMBER 24: Head coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots during the game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Gillette Stadium on December 24, 2022 in Foxborough, Massachusetts.(Photo By Winslow Townson/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Bengals’ left tackle Jonah Williams requested a trade soon after the team signed Orlando Brown Jr. Should the Patriots have interest in the former first round pick?  This could make a ton of sense for both sides, right?

Jonah Williams was a first round draft pick out of Alabama by the Cincinnati Bengals in 2019 and missed his entire rookie season but was a full-time starter in every year since then.  Then, the Bengals ponied up enough money to sign Orlando Brown Jr, which quickly prompted Williams to request a trade.

Understandable.

Williams and Mac Jones both played at Alabama and overlapped in the 2017 and 2018 seasons, so the first obvious connection is there.  Also, new Patriots’ offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien was the offensive coordinator at Alabama the past two seasons, so that could be worth something.

The thing with Williams is he’s not great, but his just fine at left tackle.  He’ll currently be playing on his fifth year option, so the Pats would have at least one year of control and would have that much time to put together a contract extension for the player.

He’s just 25 years old and would definitely solve the left tackle problem for New England, allowing them to focus elsewhere during the NFL Draft if they wanted to.

If this were to happen, the re-worked Pats’ offensive line could look like:

LT: Jonah Williams

LG: Cole Strange

C: David Andrews

RG: Mike Onwenu

RT: Trent Brown

This would allow Trent Brown to move back to the right side and would shore up the situation at tackle.  The tackle free agent signings in Calvin Anderson and Riley Reiff could serve as the primary backups in this case.

This does seem like a doable task for the Pats, and I’m not sure the Bengals would have much leverage here considering they did just sign Brown to that massive contract.  Williams almost immediately requesting a trade and playing a position of need for many teams would lessen the leverage that Cincy has, so the Pats might be able to land him for a mid-round pick.

Home/Patriots News