No NFL team will have more spending power this offseason than the New England Patriots. According to Over the Cap, the Pats are set to enter the new league year with over $127 million in cap space — the most in the league by over $30 million.
It’s a good thing they have all that cap room, too, because the Pats have an absolute ton of needs. That’s especially the case on the offensive side of the ball, where last season rookie quarterback Drake Maye was forced to overcome one of the worst supporting casts in the league.
It makes sense, then, that New England is expected to be aggressive in the free-agent market. One place the Patriots will look, according to ESPN, is the offensive line, where they are expected to pursue Baltimore Ravens tackle Ronnie Stanley.
At the NFL scouting combine, one rival NFL executive said some of the buzz going around was that the Patriots would aggressively pursue veteran Baltimore Ravens left tackle Ronnie Stanley should he make it to unrestricted free agency…
Sorting through what is legitimate and what is smoke is an evolving process, but the idea that the Patriots would be connected to Stanley hits at arguably the top theme head coach Mike Vrabel and executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf drilled home in on-the-record interviews last week.
The Patriots spent most of last season with Vederian Lowe and Demontrey Jacobs as their bookend tackles, and the pair struggled badly, to say the least. They yielded a combined 82 pressures, according to Pro Football Focus, and were somehow even less effective as run blockers than they were in pass protection.
Stanley finally stayed healthy last season after three years of injury-plagued campaigns stemming from his 2021 torn ACL, and he got back to the Pro Bowl for the first time since 2019. He is considered the top tackle on the market, and if the Patriots want to protect their investment in Maye, it makes a lot of sense to pursue him.
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