How Good was Chandler Jones?

My brother’s favorite Patriots player was Chandler Jones. Every time Jones made a big play, I could expect to get a “CHANDLER JONES!!!” text coming shortly thereafter. It was something to look forward to each week. My wife and I were pretty sure that someday we were going to have a nephew named, first name: Chandlerjones. Yes, all one word.

Maybe the biggest “CHANDLER JONES!!!” play was the field goal block, scoop and score against the Vikings in 2014. But there were a lot of them, including a sack of Russell Wilson in Super Bowl XLIX.

In just 55 games in Foxboro, Jones racked up 36 sacks, ranking him 9th in team history. He did so despite playing half the games of any of the players above him. He was getting .65 sacks per game. Of the players on this list, only Hall of Famer Andre Tippett had more, and only just barely – at .66 per game.[footnote]Sacks weren’t an official statistic in 1982, so there were 9 games for Tippett in sacks weren’t recorded.[/footnote]

No, he wasn’t dead. He was traded to Arizona. I held off on talking to my brother about it. Of course, my brother wasn’t thrilled – but he knew.

Not everyone did. An article on NBCSports.com, which claimed that Belichick’s willingness to move on from good players had cost the Patriots championships.

Past is Prologue

We’d seen this before. The Patriots cut Lawyer Milloy… and won a Super Bowl. We’d seen them cut Ty Law.

And they’d traded three-time Super Bowl champion Richard Seymour – and the Seymour trade netted Nate Solder – the starting left tackle on two Super Bowl Champions. It also let the Patriots trade their own pick for the selection that became … Chandler Jones. Seymour’s been retired since 2012, but the Patriots are still reaping the rewards of that deal.

They’d traded Logan Mankins for tight end Tim Wright and a fourth round pick in 2015. Wright was a pretty good backup tight end on the 2014 Super Bowl champs… but the real impact of the deal was the player they got with the pick. With the 101st pick in the 2015 draft, the Patriots selected Trey Flowers out of Arkansas. After missing most of his rookie season with an injury, Flowers second season saw him get to the quarterback seven times. But his biggest impact came in Super Bowl LI, where he came up with a huge fourth quarter sack that knocked the Falcons out of field goal range.

HUGE sack from former Razorback Trey Flowers! #WPS #SB51 #SuperBowl #Patriots pic.twitter.com/Au1Px0kn48

— Austin Kellerman (@AustinKellerman) February 6, 2017

And as great as Mankins was for the Patriots, he retired before the 2016 season. Of course, the loss of Mankins did leave a hole on the Patriots offensive line. They needed a stalwart guard.

And that’s where we get back to the Chandler Jones trade.

The Haul

So if you’re giving to let a player of Jones’ caliber, you’d better get something pretty good in return. Pro Football Focus clearly thought the Patriots didn’t, and declared that “Arizona wins Trade with New England for Chandler Jones.”

Of course, they were basing this off of the player the Patriots got in the trade, the disappointing Jonathan Cooper. Cooper never played a regular season down for the Patriots. Then, to prove he wasn’t kidding – Cooper got released by the 1-15 Cleveland Brown. So what did the Patriots get for Jones if Cooper was a bust? What ever became of that second round pick?

In true Belichickian fashion… he traded it to the New Orleans Saints for 3rd and 4th round picks. With the 3rd rounder, they got Joe Thuney from NC State. Thuney started all 19 games for the Patriots, and outplayed all expectations. He stepped into the Logan Mankins spot at left guard. Along with the return of coach Dante Scarnecchia, and the continued improvement of right tackle Marcus Cannon, Thuney helped solidify a porous offensive line that was a major factor why the Patriots lose to the Broncos in the 2015 AFC Championship Game. The line which surrendered 38 sacks in 2015, held opponents to just 24 in 2016. Christopher Price of WEEI.com called Thuney the 2016 Patriots Rookie of the Year.

So Thuney by himself might come close to breaking even on Chandler Jones, especially when you consider Jones’s price tag of $7.79 million in 2016, and his franchise tag number of $14.55 million in 2017.

But it’s the fourth round pick that makes this trade a true winner. With the 112th overall pick in the 2016 draft, they picked up Malcolm Mitchell. To say that the Patriots are on a roll with guys name Malcolm lately is an understatement. Malcolm Butler made the Greatest Play in Super Bowl History, Malcolm Brown helped fill the enormous shoes of Vince Wilfork (though not his Big Y gig), and now Malcolm Mitchell turns into the second coming of Deion Branch in the Super Bowl. He made big catch after big catch, with 6 catches for 70 yards – four of which went for first downs, including this one on 3rd and 11 with less than three minutes to play. You remember, the one just before the Edelman catch that exorcised the ghost of David Tyree?

Still not sure how Malcolm Mitchell got up so quickly to make this catch. pic.twitter.com/upScdXIyEV

— Kyle Smith (@AFCEastBros) February 18, 2017

Conclusion

Not a bad haul for Jones. Two really good players, at a fraction of the price. Not a bad haul.
And this is what they do. They Patriots reloaded on the fly in the salary cap era. The cap was supposed to prevent any team from staying good for a long period of time.

They turn two retired players and a high-priced free-agent-to-be into the core of a young perennial contending team. This is why they got ring number five this year, and why ring number six isn’t out of the question in the near future.