Pats Pulpit
Two Patriots trades resulted in a total of 17 players finding new teams.
The New England Patriots entered the 2025 NFL Draft with nine selections in hand, including a pair of picks acquired as part of trades made two head coaches ago. In 2023, when Bill Belichick was still running operations as head coach and general manager, the team picked up the 217th and 238th choices in the seventh round.
The first of those selections was involved in a trade sending kicker Nick Folk to the Tennessee Titans; the second came to Foxborough as part of cornerback J.C. Jackson returning to his former team. The trades themselves were quite simple in nature, but they spawned a variety of follow-up moves.
With the draft in the books, we can take a close look at all of those to find out how two relatively low-profile trades helped pave the way for some interesting results.
The team’s kicker since 2019, Folk was let go in August 2023 in favor of then-rookie Chad Ryland. The selection coming back to New England as part of the trade that sent Folk to Tennessee was later attached to quarterback Joe Milton and sent to the Dallas Cowboys — a move that set the stage for two follow-up trades.
After moving No. 217 to Dallas, the Patriots received the 171st overall pick in the fifth round of this year’s draft. That selection was then traded to the Detroit Lions for 6-182 and 7-228; the second of those picks was later sent to the Kansas City Chiefs for 7-251 and 7-257. When all was said and done, the following players had found their way to One Patriot Place:
Andres Borregales and Julian Ashby could very well play massive roles for the Patriots in 2025 and beyond. The former is one of two place kickers currently on the team’s roster, and set to compete for the place kicker job with John Parker Romo — a poetic acquisition given who New England traded away to get into its possession in the first place. Ashby, meanwhile, looks set for the long snapper role after the team released veteran Joe Cardona.
Kobee Minor, meanwhile, was the final pick in the draft. He will compete for a depth role on defense and in the kicking game but seemingly is facing a far steeper uphill climb than Borregales and Ashby.
From the Titans’ perspective, the trade is pretty straight forward. The team brought in kicker Nick Folk, with no additional draft capital involved.
Folk ended up spending the 2023 and 2024 seasons in Tennessee, playing 31 total games and putting up some impressive numbers: he made 50 of 52 field goal attempts (96.2%) and 53 of 55 extra points (96.4%). For comparison, New England’s kickers — Chad Ryland and Joey Slye —...
