From a 10,000-foot view, the New England Patriots turned a glaring need at wide receiver into a strength this offseason. That position group could, however, look drastically different a year from now.
The Patriots parted with a 2028 first-round draft pick to acquire A.J. Brown from the Philadelphia Eagles on June 1. They still have work to do on his contract, though, beyond this season.
Romeo Doubs isn’t going anywhere after signing a four-year contract back in March, but both Mack Hollins and DeMario Douglas are set to play on expiring deals this year.
Mike Vrabel and crew could very well be back in the market for another pass-catcher in 2027 — and Dallas Cowboys co-owner Stephen Jones continues to make George Pickens a name worth circling for Patriots fans.
"You look at the situation we have with George Pickens, going alongside CeeDee [Lamb], most teams — I don't know of any teams that really can pay two top receivers top of the market,” Jones said this week on the DLLS Cowboys podcast. “So that's going to be a real difficult situation as we move forward.”
George Pickens could represent the next phase of building around Drake Maye
The other side of the A.J. Brown story is that he’ll turn 30 years old during next year’s training camp. He has enough cash baked into his current contract, which technically runs through 2029 with an additional five void years tacked on, for New England to do some restructuring and keep him in Foxboro for at least the next two or three years.
But the Patriots are going to need their next guy, and Pickens could be an interesting option depending on how things play out in Dallas.
Pickens is set to play out the 2026 season on a fully-guaranteed $27.2 million franchise tag. He’ll become an unrestricted free agent in 2027 unless the Cowboys opt to tag him for a second time.
There are a number of factors working against that happening, with the most obvious being CeeDee Lamb. His current deal is running out of guarantees and carries a massive $46 million cap hit for next season. Dallas will have to mitigate that damage either via a restructure or extension.
The other factor is Pickens’ future money. A second straight franchise tag would cost the Cowboys over $32 million fully guaranteed, a sum teams would rather pay in the form of a signing bonus than a deal with no future security. Things could get extremely awkward with Lamb, too, if Pickens is signed at a number higher than Dallas’ longtime No. 1 wideout.
So, as Jones alluded to, there’s a strong chance that Pickens either hits the market or gets tied up in a tag-and-trade situation. If that happens, the Patriots could actually be sneaky suitors.
Why the Patriots can fit George Pickens on their books for 2027 and beyond
New England should be in a position to spend next year, assuming they can get Christian Gonzalez’s extension squared away here in 2026. The financial silver lining of mostly whiffing on the rest of the 2024 draft is that quarterback Drake Maye will be the Patriots' only true internal priority from a spending standpoint. The planning for Maye's mega extension has likely already been in the works for years now.
The Patriots currently rank 26th in cash spending on player salaries for this season, but they could vault closer to the top 10 in short order once Brown’s $27.45 million option bonus gets paid out this month, and Gonzalez’s new money officially hits the books.
According to Spotrac, the team currently has less than $250 million in 2027 cash commitments, and the salary cap is projected to climb to $323 million. There should be space for a splash signing like Pickens, even after the team takes care of Maye, Gonzalez, and Brown.
Pickens could represent the Patriots’ next phase at wide receiver as an elite “X” receiver on the boundary with Brown sliding over to the more mismatch-driven “Z” role. Doubs is highly versatile and could settle in as the replacement for Douglas as the main slot receiver.
It’s probably unlikely with so many moving parts, but Pickens remains a player Patriots fans should be monitoring. He would be an elite addition for Maye, and while they’ve earned themselves a bad rap on the contract front, the Patriots should have no problem competing for his services if he becomes a free agent.
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