During the seventh and final round of the 2025 NFL Draft, the New England Patriots made a strange move — trading down for one of the most coveted players remaining on their board.
The Patriots sent their final draft pick, No. 228 overall, to the Kansas City Chiefs. They got Nos. 251 and 257 at the tail end of the draft in return. And with the 251st overall pick, they selected Julian Ashby — a long snapper from Vanderbilt.
It was odd to see Mike Vrabel go full Bill Belichick mode on Day 3 of his first draft as head coach of the Patriots, but that’s what happened. New England also used a sixth-round pick on kicker Andres Borregales, who had a shaky enough camp to be considered neck-and-neck with pro football journeyman John Parker Romo.
As expected, Vrabel made a ton of changes to what was left over from the Belichick and Jerod Mayo regimes. And while potentially brilliant, the team’s decision to make a major move at long snapper was easily the Patriots’ weirdest move of the 2025 offseason.
Why did the Patriots spend 2025 draft capital on LS Julian Ashby?
The decision to draft Ashby was odd for a few reasons. For starters, the Patriots not only had a 10-year veteran at the position in Joe Cardona, but had just made him the NFL’s highest-paid long snapper with a four-year extension back in 2023.
Per ESPN's Mike Reiss, Cardona played in 160 regular season games and 13 more in the playoffs for New England. And when you consider the team's addition of another rookie kicker this year, that wealth of experience could have come in handy.
To Vrabel’s credit, the team wasted no time doubling down on their decision. They avoided any training camp controversy by granting Cardona his release in May. It gave their longest-tenured player a chance to land quickly with another team (Miami), and cemented Ashby’s standing as New England's long snapper of the future.
Clearly, the Patriots love Ashby’s age (22), trajectory, and cheap price tag as a rookie who will make around $1 million per year through the 2028 season. But, again, they didn’t love the player enough to spend the No. 228 pick on him. Instead, they made the trade back with Kansas City, risked losing him, and wound up adding cornerback Kobee Minor with the extra pick in return. The issue? New England was deep at the cornerback position in training camp this year, and Minor is expected to be waived on cut-down day.
Vrabel and the Patriots got their guy in the end, but they sure took a strange path to get there.