Joe Milton is a physically gifted quarterback entering the second year of his rookie contract who showed tantalizing upside in the New England Patriots’ 2024 season finale.
So, why did the Patriots essentially dump him on the Cowboys, sending Milton and a seventh-round pick to Dallas in exchange for a late fifth-round pick?
Part of the answer obviously involves Drake Maye. The No. 3 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft is New England’s unquestioned quarterback of the future, and the only path to playing time for Milton would have been a serious injury to Maye. But why not keep Milton around as a low-cost, high-upside insurance policy?
As the Boston Sports Journal’s Greg Bedard suggested Thursday on Boston Sports Tonight, this trade was Mike Vrabel’s call.
“This is just more evidence that Mike Vrabel is in charge, and he’s doing everything,” Bedard said, as seen in the video player above. “… From talking to people — and I’ve gotten divergent opinions on this — the bottom line is, the Vrabel regime was not gonna have Joe Milton in the building when the team arrives on Monday. They were gonna clear the decks of Joe Milton.”
While Bedard didn’t get into specifics about why Vrabel and his coaching staff wanted to part ways with Milton, he intimated it was “quite clear” that the new head coach wanted to get this deal done before players return to Gillette Stadium on Monday to begin the team’s offseason program.
So, while executive vice president of football operations Eliot Wolf technically has final say over front-office decisions, this trade happened because Vrabel wanted it to happen, per Bedard.
Could the Patriots have gotten more value for Milton had they waited until training camp or even the preseason? It’s certainly possible, especially if Milton continued to flash during summer workouts to catch the eye of a QB-needy team.
Vrabel seemingly has a plan to overhaul the roster, however, and he’s wasting no time enacting it. New England already has parted ways with four captains from last season — Jacoby Brissett, David Andrews, Ja’Whaun Bentley and Deatrich Wise — while importing a host of new players in free agency.
That overhaul includes the QB room, as the team signed veteran Joshua Dobbs last month before dealing Milton on Thursday.
Whether trading Milton was a mistake remains to be seen. But it’s clear that responsibility lies with Vrabel — and he’s OK with that.
“You can put it on me. I’m a big boy, trust me,” Vrabel said at the NFL Owners Meetings earlier this week. “We’re going to have a lot of things that go well, which will be good to the players and the assistant coaches, and they’ll have some things that won’t go so well, and you can put those on me. I can handle it.”
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