Given the Patriots' recent slide and their assumed impending rebuild, many thought New England could be major sellers at the NFL trade deadline.
Instead, it was fairly quiet in Foxboro on Tuesday, much like everywhere else around the league.
The Patriots elected to hang on to their most valuable trade chips, including Stephon Gilmore. Rumors of a Gilmore trade were aplenty leading up to the deadline, and understandably so given his current contract and New England's perceived direction moving forward.
Perhaps there's a chance Gilmore wishes he had been dealt. As ESPN NFL insider Dan Graziano explained in a column published shortly after the deadline passed, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year potentially could have benefited from a midseason move, both in the short and long term.
"By all accounts, Gilmore likes it fine in New England and wasn't eager to be traded," Graziano wrote. "But he is also going to want (and definitely deserves) a new contract at some point soon. He's scheduled to make just $7 million next year, which is the final year of his Patriots deal.
"Had New England traded him to a team willing to give him that extension, Gilmore could have been the pickup of the deadline for some team. Now he has to slug out this rebuilding year in Foxboro and hope the Patriots do right by him down the road -- either with an extension or an offseason trade."
It's tough to imagine Gilmore will be content with playing in the 2021 season for a base salary of $7 million. The three-time Pro Bowl selection in all likelihood will be looking for an extension over the offseason, though it's unclear how amenable the Patriots would be to that expected request. Gilmore turns 31 around the start of next season.
So if the veteran cornerback and New England aren't seeing eye-to-eye, maybe the franchise will revisit Gilmore's trade market over the offseason.
