The receiver room improved in 2025, but the postseason exposed the ceiling. Whether it’s a premium draft pick or a trade, the Patriots may be entering the part of the timeline where they chase an “alpha” to grow with Maye.
Our “5 Steps to Upgrade the New England Patriots in 2026” series continues with Step 3 today, and we’ll be sticking with the offense.
Now, we turn our attention to the passing game — where Drake Maye, Josh McDaniels, and the Patriots’ playmakers experienced remarkable improvement in 2025. With great chemistry between the receivers, adding another body may be a complex proposition.
New England will have to be cautious in their strategic approach to upgrading the room, but with question marks remaining out wide two years into Maye’s career, the time may be nigh to amp up the aggressiveness.
Step 3 in upgrading the Patriots is acquiring an “X” factor — pairing Maye with a consistent downfield threat.
Step 3: The “X” Factor
© Eric Hartline-Imagn ImagesNow two seasons into the Drake Maye experience, it’s clear that the New England signal caller is of the much more aggressive variety.
In 2025, Maye led the NFL completing 28-of-35 passes of 20+ yards downfield in the regular season — and has a tendency to wait for his deep-shot opportunities to develop.
While past Patriots teams have placed more of an emphasis on quickly developing short-to-intermediate routes in their playcalling and personnel, we could see a shift in team-building strategy based on the play style of the quarterback. With Maye still on a rookie contract, the time would be now to aggressively pursue an “alpha” X wide receiver that provides a dependable option on those deeper targets.
Any move of that significance would be somewhat of an indictment on New England’s current receiving corps, who notably showed remarkable improvement in the 2025 regular season. Their current X receiver, Kayshon Boutte, hauled in 10-of-14 targets on 20+ yard passes and was responsible for a 153.3 passer rating when thrown to on those plays.
Still, we saw Boutte’s limitations come the postseason. With vertical routes and comebacks largely taken off the board for him on the outside, he struggled to produce consistently with any other route variations. He’s also entering the last year of his rookie contract, so if the Patriots aren’t planning to extend him, he could be a movable piece this offseason in a trade package.
The same could be said for DeMario Douglas, who also enters the final year of his rookie deal and has shown flashes of greatness in each season with the team, but has failed to consistently produce. His snap volume and production took a major hit this season with the addition of Stefon Diggs, whose $26 million price tag for 2026 has been widely discussed.
In any event, New England’s wide receiver room seems to remain in flux — and that’s not where the Patriots want to land with Maye’s contract extension eligibility looming.
Acquiring an X receiver with more robust route-tree capabilities would open another dimension for New England’s explosive-play-dependent offense.
Free agent X receivers include George Pickens, Alec Pierce, and Mike Evans — but all come with their own questions. Pickens would be a complex culture fit, while Pierce may rival Boutte in limitations and Evans is advancing in age and injury history.
In the NFL Draft, the Patriots could look to target a wide receiver with their first-round pick, but it’s looking like options at X will be limited. Jordyn Tyson and Denzel Boston will almost assuredly be off the board at 31, Chris Bell is coming off of a torn ACL, and K.C. Concepcion and Omar Cooper, Jr., profile more as slot receivers.
Regardless of what they do at X (aside from trading the 31st pick), slot receiver could still be a target in the first round. With long-term questions surrounding both Diggs and Douglas, a player like Concepcion would provide a quick-twitch athlete with great agility and yards-after-catch potential at that spot.
If the Patriots are set on taking an X in the draft, they may value the potential of a late Day 2 or early Day 3 selection — similar to their strategy in drafting Kyle Williams last year. In that range, Malachi Fields and Chris Brazzell will be players to be on the lookout for.
As aforementioned, that strategy would create more congestion in an already crowded young receiver room. All of that’s why a trade at this position may be more likely than pulling the trigger on a premier edge like Maxx Crosby.
Philadelphia Eagles WR A.J. Brown is the obvious suspect here. A lifelong Patriots fan who spent his first four years with Mike Vrabel in Tennessee with the Titans, it seems more and more likely he’ll be on the move — and the fit just makes too much sense.
There are detractors for Brown: he comes with a hefty price tag at $35 million per year, New England will have to give up significant capital to acquire him, and the 28 year old does have reports swirling about a degenerative knee condition that the Tennessee medical staff was aware of before they ultimately traded him to Philadelphia.
Still, Brown fills every need the Patriots have at the position, and the cost to acquire him wouldn’t be near what it is for Crosby. There’s also a world where Brown makes the situation untenable enough for the Eagles to force his hand to Foxboro, greatly reducing the cost of bringing him into the building.
We won’t bet on that, but we can project what a trade for Brown would mean for New England’s offensive personnel.
By taking on Brown’s contract, the Patriots would likely move on from one of Diggs, Barmore, or Onwenu to make room. Boutte and Douglas also wouldn’t be safe in a move of that nature, as re-signing all of them wouldn’t be possible with Maye’s extension on the horizon.
Perhaps Philadelphia would be keen to the idea of Boutte as a replacement X for Brown, and/or Barmore to rotate in along their always-evolving defensive line.
With a Diggs re-structure, New England could then have a complement of Brown on the outside, Diggs in the slot, and a collection of receivers including some combination of Douglas, Williams, and Mack Hollins behind them. If Diggs is included in the package to offset the cap hit, the Patriots would still have options in the slot — just not with the same historical production.
It may sound like fantasyland, but at this point in Brown’s career — and given his up-and-down relationship with the Eagles organization — the Patriots may be able to execute a trade without including the 31st pick in the deal.
If there was ever an offseason where New England pulls off a deal to acquire Brown, we could be staring down the barrel of it now.
Looking Ahead
© David Butler II-Imagn ImagesWhile you can never place all of your chips in the middle of the table on bargaining the likelihood of a high-profile trade, there’s been smoke near this fire for quite some time.
Still, that doesn’t guarantee that the Patriots would be the team to pull off the deal — and there are plenty of areas where a deal of such nature would give some reason to hesitate.
If Brown doesn’t move — or doesn’t land in Foxboro — New England could shift to a more aggressive approach in the NFL Draft. Rather than selecting a lineman who would sit for a year in the first round, perhaps they pivot to Concepcion (if available) or trade back to the top of the second round and take another stab at it later on.
Brown would be the proven X factor that ails many of their playmaking deficiencies, but they’ll have other opportunities to add talent in the room without that high of a price tag.
But we can dream.
Next, we’ll turn back inside the numbers to a position group that will likely look almost entirely different on offense in 2026.
How do you think New England should prioritize their needs this offseason? Which players would you like to see added to the roster for 2026? Let us know in the comments below.
We’ll be continuing our “5 Steps to Upgrading the New England Patriots in 2026” series over the course of the next few days.
Stay tuned for that and much more right here on Patriots Roundtable.
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