FOXBOROUGH — On Wednesday night, the Patriots traded their most decorated pass rusher, Matthew Judon, to the Atlanta Falcons for a third-round pick.
Twenty-four hours later, his former teammates still had Eagles quarterbacks under siege, sacking them five times at Gillette Stadium. It was only a preseason game, and the Eagles were resting a number of starters, but in the wake of the Judon news it was still an encouraging development for the Patriots.
“As you can see, it’s a next-man up mentality,” Keion White said. “Obviously (Judon) is going to be be missed. He was an excellent rusher. Definitely brought a lot of things to the room experience-wise. But it’s going to obviously open up some doors for some guys. It’s all about taking advantage of the opportunity when it’s presented.”
The second-year lineman was one of the pass rushers to register a sack of Kenny Pickett, as were Deatrich Wise and Joshua Uche, who will also be tabbed with filling Judon’s void along with Anfernee Jennings. Asked about Thursday’s showing, Jerod Mayo added that the Patriots front was able to generate “a good amount of pass rush” against Eagles starters in Tuesday’s joint practice, too, so wasn’t only blowing past backups in the game.
Judon’s departure is significant though. In his 38 games with the Patriots, the four-time Pro Bowler registered a team-high 32 sacks. And beyond the on-field production, Wise says the locker room will miss Judon’s impact behind the scenes.
“When you lose players, when guys get released or traded, it always affects us,” Wise said. “Because we go through training camps, we go through seasons, we go through a lot of emotional bonding activities. To lose a guy like that, who became a brother, it’s always going to affect the locker room in different ways.”
It remains to be see how the Judon trade will reverberate. Players didn’t seem surprised — he’d been in a very public contract dispute — but the veteran was well-liked and a flood of goodbye posts on social media reflected that.
Though the Patriots know replacing Judon won’t be a one-man job, of the current players, Uche is the one with the most sacks in a season. He caught fire down the stretch in 2022 to register 11.5.
“I’ve gotta ramp it up,” Uche said. “I’ve gotta up my game and do everything I can to help the team win.”
Goals for this season aside, a look at the updated depth chart shows that the Patriots no longer boast an elite pass rusher. At least, not one who has a Pro Bowl season on their resume. Mayo doesn’t see that as a major hinderance though, and pointed to the history books as proof.
“We’ve gone years without having a premier rusher – Chandler Jones, the Judons of the world – but we were able to manufacture pass rush through our stunts and games and our game planning,” Mayo said. “It’s not going to be one person. It’s hard to sit here and say one person can replace Matthew Judon, both on the field and off the field. But I think we have a good group ready to go and step into those shoes.”
In the Patriots locker room, Judon owned the same stall for the last four seasons. After Thursday’s 14-13 loss, it sat totally empty. At the edge of a wall of lockers with open space to the right, it’s prime real estate, but nobody has moved in yet.
“Pretty big shoes (to fill),” White said. “Pro Bowler. With him out, (Christian) Barmore down, all those things in combination. We’ve got a lot of big shoes to fill. But we’ve got a next man up mentality and the next guys up have gotta be ready — including myself.”
