This is picking up some serious steam... Patriots linked to WILD trade

This is picking up some serious steam as the New England Patriots have just been linked to a wild trade ahead of the 2026 NFL season. As with NFL now in the forefront of things, Elliott Wolfe continues to try and make the final enhancements on the team, and one suggestion leads them to a defensive depth piece. We break down the trade, where exactly it came from, if it's one that the Patriots should consider, and all the latest that you ever want to hear right here today on Patriot's Digest. Welcome, everybody. I'm Jace Andrews, and I hope you're having a great day wherever you guys might be. Make sure you hit that subscribe button for 100% coverage of the New England Patriots every single day. No matter where I'm at, I'm going to get you a video out most of the time, even if it is just a short. So go down there and subscribe. I guarantee you will not regret it. So let's talk about the trade at hand, because Bleach Report had a recent article talking about a trade that every single NFL team should consider before the 2026 season starts. Now, the 2026 season, very much on the horizon. The Patriots have their training camp date set for literally just about a week and a half, two weeks away. So we are closing in on the real start of football, and obviously, with the World Cup and football coming to an end here on Sunday, guess what's going to be in the forefront of everybody's mind? NFL football. So we're super excited, and this trade is definitely an intriguing one, to say the least. And I mentioned it is a defensive player in the secondary, so let's not waste any time and go with it. It's a small trade, but it's definitely intriguing. The Patriots in this would receive a safety MJ Stewart from the Houston Texans, and the Texans in return would receive a late 2027 pick. Now, it was not stated in the article what type of pick that late rounder would be. Would it be a late, late rounder? What exactly would it be? We don't exactly know, but that was the notion made. And I want to talk about it more, but before we get to that, I want to let you know this video is brought to you by PrizePix. PrizePix is America's number one sports picks app, and I just mentioned the World Cup. You can make picks on the finale. Lionel Messi taking on Spain, the GOAT, in his final World Cup match. Does he go out there and win it? You can make some selections on it. You can also make selections on NBA Summer League, MLB when it returns here in a couple days, the Red Sox on fire, not to mention WNBA, PGA, the NFL on the horizon as well. So much to choose from, and they've got great promotions from Demon and Goblins to help kind of increase your payout, but maybe make a little picks harder. Or Goblins that maybe aren't going to get you as much money, but should be easy picks. You also got Taco Tuesday, Flex Friday. It's the perfect time. So use the link in the description. Use code Digest when signing up for an account. That way, when you play $5, you're going to get $50 instantly in lineups, and it's going to be a very fun time over the next couple of months with NFL heating up. So make sure you go make your selections now. So that was the trade. What exactly was the explanation? Because the Patriots, in a lot of people's minds, have one of the best secondaries in the NFL. You think about especially their safety room with Craig Woodson and Kevin Byers. You're talking about guys who were widely regarded as some very good safeties last year and throughout their careers, but they do make some good points on the reason of adding a depth piece to the roster. And that's where Bleacher Reports, Mel Moten kind of continues on with the report, saying New England lost safety Jalen Hawkins to the Baltimore Ravens in NFL for agency, which very big loss. Not trying to discontinue that or not talk about it, but we do have the addition of Kevin Byers. Although the Patriots signed Kevin Byers, they need someone to compete against Craig Woodson for snaps at the position. In 2025, Woodson allowed seven touchdowns and a 133.9 passer rating and coverage. Stewart is a solid eight-year veteran who can push him for a spot alongside Byers. With a loaded secondary, the Texans won't demand much for the versatile defensive back. And what I do agree with this report is he is a versatile defensive back, and he can play anywhere in the secondary if you would like to put him there. If you want to put him in a cornerback position, I guarantee he'd be fine. But in terms of safeties, Woodson and Byers are both starters. Byers at the free safety, Woodson at the strong safety. At least that's the expectation at this point. Obviously, we could see some potential finagling here, moving Marcus Jones into the safety position. Maybe Charles Woods plays in the quarterback. There's different formations for sure for the Patriots to try and work this out. But I do understand the kind of sentiment that I don't know how much I trust Dale Patterson as much as Brennan Schooler is a fantastic special teams player. Is he the guy to be the backup safety for a relatively older Kevin Byer? I think that is something that is lost in this. As Byer is very good, he also is getting up there in age. And while age is just a number, it does mean that there could be potential for injuries. Now looking at the career here of Woodson, we can kind of see what we're seeing here from MJ Stewart. And like I said, eight-year veteran at this point, been in the league since 2018, now into his year or age 31 season rather. Played with Tampa for his first seasons, then went to Cleveland for a couple seasons before landing in Houston for the past four. Last year was in nine games, four of those being starts. Had 25 tackles, not to mention pretty good coverage ratings in some fashions. One pass defended as well. But you go back to early part of his career and his defensive back days with the Cleveland Browns and pretty good there playing 16 and 13 games in his two season with the Browns, two interceptions in 2020 as well. So the veteran is there, but the questions that I think arise with Stewart is for sure the underlying statistics. The things that don't exactly raise the eyebrows when you look at the I guess we can go to that now, but it's a 49.4 overall grade, a 42.4 coverage grade, a 56.2 pass rush grade and a 79.5 run defense grade. Now he did not have enough snaps last year to be ranked in any of these, but they're not good. I'll tell you that these would not be high ranking PFF grades on really any sort of things. And so the problem that I have is maybe he can defend a pass and get his hand on it, but his coverage grade as a whole is just not good. 42.4, that's the lowest of all of his PFF grades. And if you want to talk about safeties and you want to talk about Craig Woodson allowing the passer rating that he allowed, MJ Stewart was not far away from allowing the same passer rating. And when you look at the statistics of Craig Woodson as compared to him, it's a bit different. 63.8 on the overall grade, 56.1, 63.4 on the pass rush and 78.5 besides the run defense grade, he's a good 10 plus points above what we saw from him and Jay Stewart. Now, again, are we saying that he's going to take Woodson starting spot? No, what the sentiment here is that he'll push him for a role and that the Patriots could use some extra arms. And I don't think that that's a very bad idea to look at it. I think you will go back to what we can see in MJ Stewart and the career definitely proceeds himself. You go to 2021, which he had an 83.8 overall PFF grade, what drank them fifth amongst all or rather six rather amongst 92 different quarterbacks that you're defensive backs. We want to make it up in this again. He was labeled as a defensive back that that back then, so it could have been a safety, but the year prior he was in the hundreds in terms of ranking. So it's a hard thing to kind of look at and think rationally about, oh, well, how does this player add to this team? When in reality, that's not the goal, at least of this trade, at least to the report, the goal is that the Patriots need some extra arms or extra bodies in that safety room and that you can get that by bringing him MJ Stewart and just fighting for some snaps alongside Woodson and Bayard, which is not really a bad thought. I don't think that's like a terrible idea to cross your mind. Speaking of not a terrible idea, a great idea would be getting in your prize picks for the NFL season right now. As we are inching closer, we've got the more selected here on a couple of picks for you with Drake May and his passing yards, AJ Brown, his receiving yards across the season and Travis Swift or Travis Kelsey. I'm taking his more on receiving touchdowns and what potentially could be, you know, the final year for Travis Kelsey. I think he's going to be pretty good, especially when you get when you get Patrick Mahomes back, which supposedly should be the first one. So for first week, but either way, you can make these picks and more. I mentioned the World Cup obviously come with their championship game on Sunday. Use code digest again when signing up for the count. The link will be in the description of today's show. The one thing that you do have to look at with MJ Stewart is, of course, the contract. What are you taking on? Really cheap, not going to be a worry at all. When you look at what the cap it is going to be 2.4 is nothing to scoff at him more than enough for what the Patriots have. So knowing all this, I'm going to ask you the question, would you make this trade for Stewart? If you would then type T for trade. If you would not then type P for pass. Just to refresh you, here is the proposed trade. Patriots get MJ Stewart. The Texans receive a late 2027 round pick. So think at least fifth round or on, if not six or seventh. So again, why for rather T for trade P for pass? Would you make this trade for Stewart? Leave your thoughts down in the comment section to me. I think I would. I think I would for sure. I don't hate this trade at all. And I like the thought process of adding an extra guy that has some experience into the safety room. The thing is, I don't know if it's a necessity right now. I think it's something that, again, you should consider going into training camp and seeing how your safety room looks and whether or not you feel as though the addition is worth it. So I think this safety room is in a good spot. I think the secondary is arguably one of the best in the NFL, and at least with the starters in my mind, when you talk about the secondaries, maybe not being as good. But let me know what your thought is down in the comments. And of course, guys, we'll see you next time on the show. Peace out.