As the reigning Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots were bound to lose some key pieces from their title-winning roster come the offseason.
Now that the free agency wheeling and dealing has begun, the Patriots are immediately about to lose their two best free agent talents: defensive end Trey Flowers and offensive tackle Trent Brown.
Flowers will be reunited with his former New England mentor and now Detriot Lions head coach, Matt Patricia. Meanwhile, Brown's four-year, $66 million contract with the Oakland Raiders will make him the highest-paid offensive lineman in NFL history.
Despite losing two big-name free agents that warrant huge contracts, the Patriots will likely receive two compensatory third-round picks in the 2020 NFL Draft, as per ProFootball Talk's Michael David Smith (h/t Yahoo! Sports).
Compensatory draft picks are the NFL's means of giving a team something in return as a result of losing free agents that demand top-dollar prices o the market. And as NBC Sports' David Perry had pointed out, the Patriots have used the compensatory draft pick rule to their advantage time and again.
Instead of doubling down on the standouts that made them champions the previous season, the Pats have often opted to ship those players to other teams looking for significant upgrades, all the while banking on future draft picks that they can flip as assets for future trades or developmental pieces for another title-contending run.
One caveat to keep in mind, though, is that new England must not make any moves in free agency this season that'll offset the contracts granted unto their free agents by their new teams.
But considering Brown's record-breaking deal in Oakland and Flowers' massive $17-million-per-year deal in Detroit, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that the Patriots have yet another pair of compensatory draft picks locked in the bag for them to tinker with entering the new decade.
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