A Patriots-Bears trade to give Drake Maye a chance to do his job

Two things were made clear about the New England Patriots throughout the preseason and, particularly, in the team's preseason finale on Sunday night against the Washington Commanders. First, rookie third-overall pick Drake Maye should be the starter come Week 1 over Jacoby Brissett. But second, to make that viable, the Patriots direly need to get help on the offensive line.

Throughout training camp and the preseason, New England has been acutely aware of the issues with the team's offensive line. We've seen Jerod Mayo and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt routinely shuffle around the guys in the trenches to find a combination that worked. But nothing has. Instead, we saw Washington's backups largely manhandle what could be the Patriots starters up front, leading a Brissett shoulder injury, constant pressure on Maye, and much more.

So as roster cuts and trades start to happen in rapid succession over the next few days before 53-man rosters are finalized on Tuesday, Aug. 27, the Patriots should absolutely make a call to a team like the Chicago Bears, who might be able to offer some help in the offensive line department.

A Patriots-Bears trade that sends Larry Borom to protect Drake Maye

With Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright entrenched as Chicago's starting tackles, Larry Borom was already designated as a backup. But then the Bears drafted Kiran Amegadjie in the third round of this year's draft, which seemingly put Borom on notice, even more so when the rookie was recently brought back from the NFI list.

That makes Borom, who has played meaningful snaps across three seasons with the Bears, potentially expendable, as noted by Eric Edholm of NFL.com. And the Patriots should be burning up the phone lines to make a trade such as this to acquire him.

Giving up a fifth-round pick, even when the Patriots don't have a sixth-rounder in the 2025 draft, could be well worth it to bring some level of stability to the offensive line.

Make no mistake, Borom isn't a world-beater who would come to Foxborough and be Trent Williams or Penei Sewell or any of the other best tackles in the NFL today. He actually graded out quite poorly last year at the position across more than 400 snaps. But he was serviceable in each of the previous two seasons, which is more than the Patriots can say for the guys currently in the building.

The Bears are in a position where they could face the decision of either cutting or trading Borom, and the latter would obviously be the more attractive option. And the Patriots could be an attractive partner for them to work with given the likely desperation in the building to help the O-line, especially if they put their new wunderkind, Maye, in as the starter.

So this all lines up to be a perfect match. The only hurdle that remains is either of these two teams picking up the phone to make the call, which we could very well see happen in the coming days.