{"id":874484,"date":"2026-04-25T18:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T18:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/874484\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T18:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T18:21:17","slug":"preliminary-results-of-patriots-first-round-trade-with-bills-are-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/874484\/","title":{"rendered":"Preliminary results of Patriots\u2019 first-round trade with Bills are in"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New England Patriots entered the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft in possession of the 31st overall selection in the draft, but with a run of offensive tackles underway decided to move up the board<\/a>. To do so, they sent that pick plus the 125th selection in the fourth round to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for pick No. 28.<\/p>\n

While not all the chips have fallen into place yet, the most important \u2014 especially in regards to this year\u2019s draft \u2014 have. Let\u2019s take a look.<\/p>\n

The Patriots didn\u2019t want to miss out on the tackle run in the first round, which is why they traded up with a specific target in mind:<\/p>\n

The expectation is that Lomu will start his Patriots career as a swing backup behind left tackle Will Campbell and right tackle Morgan Moses. Eventually, the 21-year-old will take over a starting role, with him replacing Moses as the most likely outcome.<\/p>\n

OK, this is going to be a bit complicated, so stick with us there. We are not going to go in-depth on every permutation, but let\u2019s just say that one of the picks the Patriots gave up in the trade \u2014 No. 31 overall \u2014 was repurposed by Buffalo in a series of follow-up moves.<\/p>\n

The exact details and teams involved in those trades are irrelevant, but here are the preliminary results that can directly be traced back to that original move in the first round:<\/p>\n

T.J. Parker, Davison Igbinosun and Jude Bowery as well as a 2027 seventh-round selection were all acquired through the aforementioned series of follow-up transactions that had the 31st overall pick as its origin. The remaining player involved, meanwhile, was picked directly with what had been the Patriots\u2019 choice at No. 125: Skyler Bell, a productive wide receiver at UConn who New England will now have to defend twice a year.<\/p>\n

Given that Buffalo reinvested one of the picks involved in the trade quickly after it was finalized, and that this led to multiple other moves and acquisitions, it is hard to make a 1-on-1 comparison. However, looking simply at the players most directly associated with the trade, we can say that the success of the move will depend largely on Caleb Lomu and his ability to become a starter in New England at one point.<\/p>\n

If that happens, and he lives up to his potential, the Patriots will feel good about having made that trade. If not, they have bigger issues than the capital given up to climb three spots in the first round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots entered the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft in possession of the 31st…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52640,727,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-874484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-new-england","10":"tag-new-england-patriots","11":"tag-new-england-patriots-analysis","12":"tag-new-england-patriots-draft","13":"tag-newengland","14":"tag-newenglandpatriots","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116466737726634591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}