When New England linebacker Matthew Judon executed his flamboyant hold-in during training camp a couple of weeks ago, it was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped. We all knew that shoe would either come in the form of a new contract for Judon or a trade, and today, the latter came to fruition as the Patriots sent their former sackmeister packing to Atlanta for a third-round pick.
The move is fraught with meaning for both Judon and the Pats, so let’s break it all down and take a closer look at some of the nuances. It’s a fascinating example of how much New England has changed now that Bill Belichick is gone, and it significantly changes Judon’s career arc as well.
The mother of all hold-ins
Some guys take the high road when they quit in training camp, but not Matthew Judon. He made his hold-in as public as possible, dressing for practice, then doing everything he could to embarrass the organization and make new coach Jerod Mayo look like a fool.
His antics included sitting on trash barrels and laughing and smiling as he made a public display of himself and engaged with fans, and they got nationally noticed because…well, how could they not be? Mayo finally had a conversation with Judon in which he exercised admirable restraint by not losing his mind with rage, and when the linebacker came back to practice and started acting like an adult again, we all assumed the storm had passed.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. How utterly wrong we were.
What the trade means for Matthew Judon
Judon gets a fresh start with a new organization, and if there’s one thing the Falcons are famous for, it’s spending foolishly. They just paid a super-expensive free agent QB coming off an Achilles tear, then doubled down on Kirk Cousins's potential unhappiness by drafting his replacement in the first round in Michael Penix.
We don’t know for sure if Atlanta has had preliminary contract negotiations with Judon, but it’s hard to imagine that some talks haven’t gone down already. The Pats were widely expected to give Judon a salary bump with some reachable incentives, but given the way Atlanta operates, there’s a good chance the Falcons will extend him. Raheem Morris is a defensive guy who will doubtless love moving Judon around in his alignments, even if the edge rusher is coming off a serious arm injury.
Judon is Eliot Wolf’s first epic fail
For New England, on paper, there’s nothing wrong with trading Judon, and they got a decent value for him, given the fact that he’s 32 and coming off a serious injury. It’s only when you dig beneath the surface a little that you realize just how bad this trade really is.
Wolf and Mayo are both caught between the proverbial rock and a hard spot here. Mayo already has an impossible task following the greatest coach ever, although Belichick was nowhere near that in his last few years, and he left the roster in a horrific mess. The new coach is trying to right the ship after a 4-13 season, and he’s doing it with a new GM and an impatient owner who likely just forced them to draft a quarterback they may not have wanted in Drake Maye.
Wolf is just as jammed up. Bob Kraft played Mickey Mouse games with his title, and he’s now listed as VP of Personnel rather than full GM. Wolf faced the impossible task of finding a quarterback, a left tackle, and an explosive receiver in a single offseason, and so far, he’s barely one for three, assuming Maye’s footwork improves and he can replace a placeholder starter as early in the season as possible.
The new personnel guru then decided to re-sign a mess of talent from a messed-up roster, although at least most of that talent was on the defensive side of the ball, where New England excelled last year.
For better or worse, Matthew Judon was the last piece of that re-signing puzzle, but now he’s embarrassed the coach, the GM, and the owner by shooting his way out of town. Judon was a popular locker room guy with a relentless motor who basically did things the right way until this last knucklehead move, but now he’s been rewarded for it. The implications of how this went down will be felt in the locker room and across the league as the laughingstock Patriots try to figure out how to fix and rebuild what was once one of the league’s marquee franchises.