Patriots executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf said in August that the team is open to trading premium draft picks for players currently in the league and the Patriots have ample cap space, so it’s no surprise that some would wonder whether they tried to trade for Micah Parsons before Dallas sent him to Green Bay last week.
Head coach Mike Vrabel fielded questions about that during an appearance on The Greg Hill Show on WEEI on Tuesday morning. Vrabel said a Parsons trade “wasn’t something that we really invested a lot of time or resources in” and that “we have to build some depth there to this roster, and you do that from the draft.”
That led to another question about whether a run of poor drafts in recent years impacted their willingness to make a deal involving first-round picks at this time.
“No,” Vrabel said. “I’m just saying that when we build this thing, and moving forward, we want to build it and make sure that we’re building through the draft. And then again, like I said, retaining the players that we feel like have developed and have earned contracts. And while Micah Parsons is a great player, just probably wasn’t the best fit or the right time, I think, for us.”
Parsons will be lining up with the Packers while Vrabel and Wolf try to find and develop players who can have a similar impact on the game in the years to come.