3 Patriots Most Likely to Be Traded Before Roster Cutdown Day

2. Bailey Zappe

Belichick loves to trade players before they lose their value, and Zappe’s trade value may never be higher than it is right now. His surprisingly strong rookie campaign is still pretty fresh in many people’s minds after he won both of his starts last year and completed 70.7% of his passes with 5 touchdowns and 3 interceptions.

There’s reason to believe Zappe’s production was a fluke, though, and New England could be looking to move on from him after his disappointing preseason performance against the Packers. He only completed 10 of his 22 passes for 117 yards, looking more like a true backup than a legitimate starter.

With the emergence of Malik Cunningham and Trayce McSorley on the depth chart as well, the Patriots have several decent backups for Mac Jones. That could motivate Belichick to trade Zappe while his stock is still high, especially if another team values him more than New England does.

Trading Zappe would also send a vote of confidence to Jones that he’s “the guy” and eliminate any lingering controversy from last year’s quarterback battle. Otherwise, keeping Zappe around could be seen as a constant threat to Jones’ job security and potentially harm his performance.

Zappe may never repeat last year’s unexpected success, so selling high on him could be a good move.