Patriots Make Division Trade With Dolphins And Acquire DeVante Parker.

*Update I'm seeing conflicting reports on whether the Patriots are getting a 2022 or 2023 draft pick*

Bill Belichick traded for a twenty nine year old receiver who missed six games in 2021 due to injury and who has missed a total of nineteen games over the course of his career due to injury. Parker has Injured his hamstring seven times going back to 2016. He's had four foot injuries, two shoulder injuries, a hand injury, a back injury, a groin injury and a quad injury. The worst part is it appears all of his leg injuries are from his left side.

The good news for the Patriots is they have him under contract until the end of the 2023 season and he's costing under six million dollars a season. The bad news is the Patriots may have to now mess around with contracts and someone has to be willing to have their contract played with or they're gonna have to cut someone. Hopefully this ends the Odell Beckham Jr to New England talk but like we saw with calls for Dez Bryant, it's not gonna quiet everyone until the league says he's done.

The Patriots gave up a 2023 third round pick and got a 2023 fifth round pick back. Essentially they just traded picks. If Parker returns to top form and can stay healthy, this is a win for the Patriots. As Parker is a former first round pick. However, Parker has only once broke a thousand yards in his career. 

While fans are screaming the Patriots have a number one, looking at his numbers, the Patriots got a potential elite number two. Realistically the Patriots should hope to get statistical numbers around what Damiere Byrd in 2020 and Nelson Agholor in 2021. And if he can speak out Kendrick Bourne numbers that would be the dream scenario. Another thing is in college, he played both outside and in the slot. So there's versatility as to how he can be used.

Parker has good hands with a 90.9% true catch rate but although he caught almost everything, he also had 9 drops in 2021. His 1.27 target seperation ranked him 91st in the league. Parker also only averaged 1.2 yards after catch ranking him 116th. 

This gives the Patriots DeVante Parker, Nelson Agholor, Kendrick Bourne, N'Keal Harry, and presumably Jakobi Meyers who the Patriots placed a second round tender on. And there's still a good chance the Patriots add a receiver in the draft. With exception to offensive line, the Patriots have basically answered all their needs on offense this free agency period. 

Now back to his injury history for a minute. Draft Sharks give Parker a 12.9% chance of getting injured per game in 2022. And they project Parker to miss 2.9 games this season. One might ask how can one have a .9, the answer is missing time during games due to injury.  So Patriots fans need hope he's more durable than Danny Amendola. The Patriots strength and conditioning coach is going to be challenged with this guy.