Insight behind Matthew Judon's trade could spell trouble for Patriots' future

It has been a wild week in New England since it was reported that the team decided to trade star pass rusher Matthew Judon to the Falcons for a third-round pick, a move met with varying reactions from fans and players alike.

He had made it very clear he didn't want to play anywhere else if given the choice and would ideally like to retire with the Patriots, making the trade a bit hard to swallow for some. It seemed like even Judon had conflicting feelings about the decision, alluding on social media that he was heartbroken but also showing excitement about his future team.

Details surrounding how the trade went down have been scarce, as most reporters have simply gone based on how things have appeared on the practice field and whispers behind the scenes.

However, Judon did a series of interviews on his way out of Foxboro earlier this week and provided a glimpse of how the trade came about, how his relationship with the Patriots staff had changed, and revealed one issue that might become significant during Jerod Mayo's tenure.

Matthew Judon reveals one factor regarding his contract negotiations that the Patriots cannot continue in the future

One of the stops Judon made before moving to the NFC South was to NBC Sports Boston, where he spoke to host Kayla Burton about his time with the Patriots.

Most of what he had to say was interesting, but nothing was more noteworthy than when he was asked why an extension didn't get done, something most fans and reporters couldn't wrap their heads around given how productive he had been since signing with the team in 2021.

"I don’t know. I feel like we just never sat down and really came to the table. I think that’s the biggest point. They kind of didn’t know where I was at. We kind of didn’t know where they was at. It was just always through text messages and phone calls, we just never sat down and actually talked about it. I think that was the biggest kind of disconnect."

If Judon's account of what happened is accurate, it's a recipe for disaster for the team's future dealing with contract extensions. They've certainly had good luck thus far with other players, like Christian Barmore and Mike Onwenu, but not having productive in-person conversations with a guy of Judon's caliber is a big miss.

Hopefully, they will not repeat that and will be open to having meetings with players in Judon's position in the future.

There's no valid explanation for why they never did that with him before trading him, which makes the trade sting a bit more, regardless of the valuable compensation.

It would be wise for the new regime, mostly Eliot Wolf, to take this instance with Judon as a situation to learn from and improve upon because you don't want to set this kind of precedent early in your new tenure. Nor do you want to give the impression that you're unwilling to have tough conversations or actually negotiate with high-performing players.

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