Bill Belichick References Tom Brady In Explaining Patriots Trades

Why did the Patriots swing two late-August trades for offensive tackles? Simple: They weren’t satisfied with their depth at the position.

Head coach Bill Belichick spent most of his Monday morning video conference explaining why New England acquired Tyrone Wheatley Jr. from Cleveland and Vederian Lowe from Minnesota one day earlier.

During one answer, he pointed to Tom Brady’s 2008 ACL tear to stress the importance of having reliable depth at as many positions as possible.

“Depth’s important at every position on your roster,” Belichick said. “You just don’t know when you’re going to need it. … You can’t insure all of them, but you try to have as much depth as you can on your roster for those contingencies, not knowing for sure when you’re going to need that. Tom Brady got hurt in 2008, first play, first game, and it turns out you need depth at that position with (Matt) Cassel. And then that never happened again.

“A little bit of that’s unpredictable, but you just have to be prepared for (it), and we felt like this was an opportunity to work with two young players that would give us that. We’ll see how it goes.”

The Patriots were forced to make these late preparations because their original plan at tackle quickly flopped. The three mid-level veterans they signed this offseason (Riley Reiff, Conor McDermott and Calvin Anderson) all currently are unavailable due to injury or illness, and fourth-round rookie Sidy Sow has been inconsistent after playing guard in college.

Less than two weeks out from their Sept. 10 season opener against Philadelphia, it remains unclear who will start at right tackle for the Patriots this season. Belichick said he wasn’t sure whether Reiff or Anderson would be healthy enough to return by then.

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Wheatley and Lowe are two relatively inexperienced players. The former is a converted tight end who has yet to appear in a regular-season NFL game, and the latter played just 33 offensive snaps as a rookie last season. Both have experience at both tackle spots but mainly have played on the left side.

Belichick wouldn’t say whether either will be able to contribute early this season. He also was mum on their expected positions.

“We’ll have to see,” Belichick said. “We’ll work with them. Both have primarily played on the left side, although Tyrone hasn’t played a lot of tackle. But they’ve both also played on the right, and we’ll see what else they can do. I don’t know. We’ll see.

“Sidy hardly played any tackle at all in his career, and he’s exclusively played tackle since he’s been here. So we’ll just have to wait and see how that plays out. But they were available. We’re looking forward to working with both of them, and we’ll see how it goes.”

To acquire Wheatley, the Patriots traded second-year running back Pierre Strong, who played sparingly as a rookie and missed a week this preseason with a concussion. Belichick said New England’s recent signing of Ezekiel Elliott made moving a reserve back more palatable.

“After signing Zeke, we felt like we had a little more depth at the running back position and had less depth on the offensive line,” the coach said. “That’s why we made it, and we’ll see how it goes. … We’re not looking to get rid of anybody, but we had to give up something to get a player that we felt like we needed.”

The Patriots reportedly sent a 2024 sixth-round draft pick to the Vikings in exchange for Lowe. The 2022 sixth-rounder started 45 games at left tackle at Illinois, where he played under ex-Patriots assistant Bret Bielema.

“He’s just a player we feel like could compete on the offensive line, give us some depth here, and we’ll see how it goes,” Belichick said. “Young player, has played a lot of tackle in his career at Illinois and (with) Minnesota. May have some position flexibility, I don’t know. We’ll have to work with him and see.”

Following the two trades, the Patriots had a total of eight offensive tackles on their 90-man roster: Trent Brown, Reiff, Anderson, McDermott, Sow, Andrew Stueber, Wheatley and Lowe. They must finalize their initial 53-man roster by 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday.