Steelers Rumored Trade Sends $146.5 Million 5-Time All Pro to Resurgent Patriots

Vrabel Adds Former Protege in Pass Rush

In their free agent spree, the Patriots also added one of Vrabel’s first draft picks when he became head coach of the Tennessee Titans in 2018. Harold Landry went to the Titans in the second round that year and has sandwiched seasons with 12 and 10 1/2 sacks in 2021 and 2023 around a year lost to injury in 2022. Landry sacked opposing QBs nine times in 2024, his final season with the Titans.

Landry had high praise for Vrabel at New England’s voluntary workouts last week.

“I feel like one of the main jobs for a head coach is to make sure your team’s prepared situationally,” Landry said, as quoted by the Boston Herald. “And all I know is, as long as I played for Vrabes, there was never a situation I wasn’t prepared for. Like, I don’t care what the score was in the fourth quarter. I don’t know. We just always had a feeling that we was going to pull this out.”

But the Patriots, according to one currently hot NFL trade rumor, may be about to make their pass rush into a truly fearsome force by adding a four-time first-team All Pro (plus one second-team selection) and seven-time Pro Bowl selection who will enter the final year of his four-year, $112 million contract in 2025.

Blockbuster Deal Makes Pats’ Pass Rush ‘Legitimate Threat’

The sports business site SpoTrac estimates the value of pass rusher T.J. Watt on the open market as $146.5 million, so Watt may turn out to be a single-year rental for the Patriots. Watt has reportedly been attempting to negotiate a contract extension with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but according to media reports is still asking for to much money.

At the same time, Watt’s impending free agency is driving down his trade value. Though just a year removed from leading the NFL with 19 sacks — his third season of eight in which he topped he league in that category — according to the reports, Watt’s current contract status means he will net little more than a single, third-round draft pick.

But if Watt is dealt away, Bet Online lists the Patriots as the favorites to reel him in, at odds of thee-to-one.

“They currently sit with the league-high remaining cap space ahead of the draft, with a projected $68 million left to spend this offseason, so they could easily accommodate trading for Watt and offering him an extension,” wrote Fansided‘s Sara Marshall. “He would immediately make the Patriots defense a legitimate threat.”