Pats Pulpit
New England made five total trades during the 2025 NFL Draft
The New England Patriots were quite busy during the NFL Draft. Besides adding 11 new players to their roster, they also made a series of trades to acquire some of those and increase their future capital.
“I think that’s the fun part about the draft,” vice president of player personnel Ryan Cowden said on the final day of the draft. “Sometimes opportunities don’t present themselves. There’s always got to be two partners, right? There’s got to be somebody willing to come up and somebody willing to go down. What you try to do is just as best you can.”
In total, Cowden and the rest of the Patriots’ decision makers — Eliot Wolf, Mike Vrabel, Alonzo Highsmith, Matt Groh — found four different trade partners for five different trades. Using the different trade charts collected by NFL analyst Joseph Hefner, let’s take a look at them to see how the team performed from a value perspective.
Before starting out, though, a quick word on the different charts. There are two types: trade charts and player value charts. In the simplest of terms, the first group aims at analyzing the value teams put on the different selections, while the others look at how players selected in those spots have historically performed relatively to factors such as their rookie contract values.
The Patriots’ first trade of the draft came in the third round, when they decided to move back eight spots with the Carolina Panthers. Going from No. 77 to No. 85, they picked up an extra fifth-rounder — No. 146 — along the way.
From a value perspective, the trade looks like this:
The Patriots got the superior value out of the trade if we use the surplus models; with the exception of the outdated Jimmy Johnson chart, they come out ahead in all of the other models. However, we can already see a theme that will remain relevant with the other four trades as well: the general value exchanged is pretty even.
Differences between the two teams can either be attributed to a club’s willingness to make a move rather than a selection, or to slightly different value charts being used by the teams involved. Or, both.
As for the actual picks involved in the trade, they were reinvested as follows:
After trading down eight slots from No. 77 to No. 85, the Patriots decided to move down the board a second time. This time, they picked up a future selection in the process: making a trade with the Kansas City Chiefs, they gave up No. 85 for No. 95 and a 2026 fourth-rounder.
Analyzing the value of that trade involves some guesswork. For starters, there is no telling where Kansas City’s fourth-rounder will end up;...
