Days after acquiring one veteran offensive tackle, the New England Patriots are trading away another.
The Patriots agreed Sunday on a trade that will send Marcus Cannon to the Houston Texans, according to multiple reports.
NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport was the first to report the deal, which cannot be finalized until the NFL league year opens Wednesday.
The trade involves an unspecified swap of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-round draft picks, per a report from Jim McBride of The Boston Globe.
Trading Cannon, who opted out of the 2020 NFL season due to COVID-19 seasons, will free up $6.3 million in salary cap space for the Patriots when accounting for the Top 51 rule.
Cannon has played his entire NFL career with the Patriots, who drafted him in the fifth round in 2011. The soon-to-be 33-year-old appeared in 115 games with 69 starts over nine seasons and was New England’s primary right tackle from 2016 through 2019. His best season came in 2016, when he started 15 games, earned second-team All-Pro honors and helped the Patriots win Super Bowl LI.
The trade returns Cannon, a TCU alum, to his home state of Texas. It also is the first deal completed between Patriots coach Bill Belichick and new Texans general manager Nick Caserio, who spent 20 years in New England before taking over Houston’s football operation in January.
Earlier this week, the Patriots agreed to re-acquire tackle Trent Brown from the Las Vegas Raiders for an exchange of Day 3 draft picks. That trade, like the Cannon deal, cannot be made official until Wednesday. Brown previously played for the Patriots in 2018, starting every game at left tackle that season.
Brown joins Isaiah Wynn, Mike Onwenu, Justin Herron, Korey Cunningham and Yodny Cajuste on the Patriots depth chart at tackle. Wynn (left) and Onwenu (right) were New England’s primary starters in 2020, but either could shift to left guard in 2021 if the team loses Joe Thuney in free agency.
Thuney, center David Andrews, tackle/guard Jermaine Eluemunor and center/guard James Ferentz will be unrestricted free agents when the league year opens.
