Patriots rumors: Why Marcus Cannon trade makes perfect sense

The New England Patriots reported trade of Marcus Cannon makes perfect sense for a team looking to free up more cap space and remake a moribund squad.

The trade to the Houston Texans involves Cannon going to the Texans and the teams reportedly swapping picks in the fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds.

This would seem to involve the Patriots moving up from No. 19 to No. 5 (a pick Houston acquired previously from Miami) in the fourth round as the major part of the deal.

This is the first deal involving the Texans under new General Manager Nick Caserio, formerly of the Patriots’ staff with Bill Belichick and maybe a harbinger of things to come.

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Unfortunately, any future deals would not seem not to include an absolute megadeal with Houston for the top possibly available prize, Deshaun Watson, one of the best quarterbacks in football.

That notwithstanding, if confirmed, this has to be looked upon as another prudent, future-oriented move by the Patriots and it gets a firm, thumbs-up here.

If these types of moves become a habit, we may be seeing a revival of the Patriots’ personnel operation. So far, so good. Indeed.

As a previous article explored, the Patriots have very good options on the offensive line without Cannon who was an opt-out due to COVID 19 in the 2020 season. In his stead, rookie guard, Michael Onwenu stepped in for Cannon and played marvelously.

Onwenu became the Patriots best rookie last season and made Cannon expendable. A further move by New England in trading for Trent Brown, a great re-acquisition, set up moving Cannon.

The New England Patriots clearly are seeking to remake an offensive line that fell far short of expectations in 2021. It had Cam Newton running for his life much of the time.

Now, Newton’s running is not necessarily a bad thing. Far from it. Yet, it should be limited primarily to plays where it is scripted, and not out of necessity as it was far too often in 2020.

New England Patriots freed up more cap space by trading Marcus Cannon

In addition to the swapping of picks, another ancillary and very positive outcome of the trade will be to free up an additional $6.3M or so on the cap for New England. New England already has lots of cap space to spend on free agents if they are so inclined. This adds to that total.

Yet, it’s still to be seen if they can allocate that money to players who will actually improve the team. Nonetheless, freeing up space for players who may not be integral to future plans is a prudent strategy.

Cannon will be 33 in May and had played nine seasons in New England prior to 2020.

Yet, Houston will get a solid, reliable right tackle while New England gets more cap space.

The move also allows New England to move Isaiah Wynn to right tackle or inside to guard while Onwenu either moves inside to guard or stays at tackle, as they see fit as an article previously explored in more detail.

An article quoted the great Tom Curran earlier predicting this offseason for the New England Patriots,

"“Everything I am hearing from down there is that the Patriots are going to be extremely and uncharacteristically aggressive in this offseason,” Curran said.Curran further elaborated that Belichick has clearly been irked by the team’s lack of production, personnel struggles, and inability to find an identity throughout the season."

Frankly, that type of optimism was greeted with extreme skepticism on these pages, having observed too many seasons with too many bad personnel decisions in the past.

But, seeing is believing, and clearly, it’s easy to see that something’s afoot at Gillette Stadium. Curran certainly looks to be right on target, as would be assumed with his great presence in Foxborough. And if Curran is right, it could be quite the show to observe.

To-date in this offseason, the Patriots have moved assertively, and it has to be said very positively to rearrange their roster.

First, they began by shoring up their offensive line, their most important unit. They brought back a top and very underrated contributor to the 2018 Super Bowl-winning club, left tackle Trent Brown.

This was a huge move. Brown was an underrated and top contributor to the last Patriots’ Super Bowl-winning team. Then they re-signed Cam Newton on a team-friendly deal. Another good, solid move.

It has been clearly written in these pages that Cam Newton was the scapegoat for a poor New England team, and not responsible for their dismal showing in 2020. That responsibility rests with the personnel operation.

There have been changes therein and things seem to be moving in the right direction. Can this continue? Will the Patriots move into free agency and the draft and be “extremely and uncharacteristically aggressive” as Tom Curran surmised?

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That’s yet to be seen. But for this past vocal critic, things certainly seem to be headed in the right direction, without question.

If the New England Patriots can continue this forward progress in free agency and the draft, who knows what 2021 could bring?

Assuming they do, it could be a very surprising 2021 season, indeed. Things could get interesting and exciting again in Foxborough. Won’t that be something to behold?

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