Trading Matthew Judon was a big mistake for the Patriots for two reasons

The New England Patriots failed to come to a contract agreement with Matt Judon. Some had even predicted that it was essentially a "no-brainer.". OOPS! He's now an Atlanta Falcon, and we won't see him coming off the left edge for 15 or so sacks again.

Patriots' media defenders will have a field day trying to paper over another major howler by the team's personnel administration by centering on one issue. That's the admittedly decent return for Judon, a third-round pick, significantly higher than most expected (hand-raised here).

Yet, while the return is OK, the trade signals a disaster of a season in the making. Let's take a look at two central reasons why this trade stinks for the New England Patriots and should be decried by Patriot Nation as a cop-out.

The Patriots capped off a lousy offseason with a lousy trade

The Patriots accomplished a few good things this off-season. Their best move was drafting Drake Maye. The other moves were drafting two promising wide receivers in the second and fourth rounds, Ja'Lynn Polk and Javon Baker. They also re-signed some of their better players.

The latter was OK, to a point. They overpaid some, and while retaining some of your better players is fine, it doesn't improve your squad by one iota. That's an issue. And when you fail to re-sign your best and most productive player, Matt Judon, you've made a critical error.

Not re-signing Judon, and trading him, albeit for a decent draft pick, is a personnel transgression of the highest order. When healthy, Matt Judon was (hurts to use that tense) the New England Patriots' best player. He's a perennial 15-sack player. Who else is that type of player on the Patriots? Right, no one's even close.

That production made him their best player. Now he's gone. So now, you've traded the best player from the best side of the ball you have, the defense. The team had already lost its second-best player, Christian Barmore, to illness.

Trading Judon dramatically weakens your strength and defense, which is further than it already had been. It's a misstep of the highest order. If you're the Patriots owner and see your team jettisoning your best player, a fan favorite, and the sack-master you hadn't in decades, how happy would you be?

The Patriots second huge error is an even worse signal

So the team has just weakened its only real hope for winning season, having a strong and dominating defense. It begs the question, again, of whether the team is actually in the proverbial game (the 2024 NFL season) to win, at all.

The answer to that question seems to have been definitely answered once and for all. The Patriots have thrown in the towel on the 2024 season. Winning is no longer the objective. Instead, they have bought into the fallacious notion of long-term "rebuilding."

Rebuilding is nothing more than another name for acceptable losing. Even the 2021 Patriots showed that you can make the playoffs when you have a decent quarterback, even if he's a rookie. That rookie was Mac Jones. Drake Maye is on another level entirely. And so was the Patriots' defense. Now, it's not.

The outgrowth of this terrible offseason, when the team neglected to bring in even one left tackle—a blunder of the highest magnitude—and now has traded its best player, is that the New England Patriots have tanked the 2024 season before it has even begun.

In trading their best player, Matt Judon, the Patriots now accept the moniker of "loser" without even having kicked one ball in anger. It's a disgraceful fall from the summit for this once proud franchise. For two decades, it ruled the National Football League, and nothing but winning the Big Game made the season a success. Now, winning is secondary.

With their new management team, the Pats accepted have the moniker of "perennial loser", aka a "rebuilding" franchise. Welcome to "Jetsville". Expect Patriot Nation to act accordingly. The boos will rain down at the next home game. And they won't stop until after 2024's last.

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