New England Patriots: Evaluating the 2020 trade deadline

The New England Patriots made just one minor move at the NFL trade deadline.

Leading up to Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline, many were curious as to what the New England Patriots would do and if they would turn to become buyers or sellers at the deadline.

The short answer to that question: Not much.

After some rumors began to swirl around the league earlier in the day on Tuesday regarding potentially trading star defensive back Stephon Gilmore, the Patriots didn’t end up trading away their leader on defense with reports suggesting New England was asking for a first-round pick and a player in return for Gilmore.

Instead, the Patriots made a different move and acquired a player to potentially boost the offense before the deadline arrived.

What to make of the New England Patriots one minor trade

Around midday on Tuesday, New England traded for Miami Dolphins wide receiver Isaiah Ford in a deal that was a rare in-division trade between two teams. In return, the Patriots paid the low price of a seventh-round draft pick in the 2020 NFL Draft to bring in Ford to the squad.

The addition of Ford could be viewed as a short-term minor fix to the offensive unit that has seen some injury issues with wide receivers as of late, most notably with wideouts Julian Edelman and N’Keal Harry.

Ford is in his third season in the NFL and with the Dolphins since coming out of Virginia Tech as a seventh-round draft pick in the 2017 Draft. Since coming into the league, he hasn’t had too much of a meaningful impact on Miami, playing in a total of 16 games over about a 2.5-year span.

So far this season, the 24-year-old wide receiver has played in seven games, tallying 18 receptions for 184 yards and 10.2 yards per reception. His best season to date came in 2019, when he playing in eight games for the Dolphins and finished with 23 catches for 144 yards, also adding 11 rushing yards in his second season.

Ford isn’t a flashy acquisition for New England that many would have liked or hoped out of Bill Belichick and company at the deadline, but given the current state of the team with a record of 2-5 overall and question marks surrounding where the Patriots go from here, perhaps a quiet trade deadline is for the better for New England.

Ford will come in and will have a chance to prove himself with the Patriots for the rest of the year, and it could certainly be a possibility that he carves out some sort of role on the team for the 2020 campaign and moving forward.

Either way, Ford is a young, slot-type receiver that can only help and add depth to a New England wide receiving group that desperately needs it at this point in the season. He might not make a huge impact, but it was a low-risk, high-reward capable move on the side of the Patriots.

Now with the deadline over with, New England didn’t make too much noise during a deadline day that was relatively quiet around the NFL. When evaluating the day overall for the Patriots, the move that was made didn’t hurt or necessarily help New England a ton moving forward.