One Alarming Concern for Patriots Biggest Free Agent Signing

The New England Patriots made quite the splash on the first day of the legal tampering period in NFL free agency, agreeing to a massive contract with defensive lineman Milton Williams. How massive? Well, the Patriots added the Philadelphia Eagles' Super Bowl hero on a four-year, $104 million deal.

Given that Williams put forth a dominant performance in the Super Bowl and was coming off of a pretty solid season in general, it's no surprise that he landed a lucrative pact, but I'm not sure anyone anticipated that Williams would land $26 million annually.

From a numbers perspective, Williams was pretty modest in 2024, finishing with 24 tackles and five sacks. Now, to be fair, you can't always measure a player's impact in terms of surface-level statistics, so we can't necessarily judge the 25-year-old on the basis that his numbers don't jump off the page.

We can, however, look at other aspects, such as the fact that Williams only played in 48 percent of the Eagles' defensive snaps this past season, which was a career high over the course of four years.

That is honestly pretty alarming, particularly for a defensive tackle. It's not like Williams is a pass-rushing specialist along the edge, so why was he never even able to play in half of Philadelphia's defensive plays?

Many have noted that Williams largely benefited from being surrounded by a bunch of other dominant players along the Eagles' front seven, such as edge rusher Josh Sweat (who just signed with the Arizona Cardinals) and fellow defensive tackles Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis.

Williams won't have the same help in New England. Actually, he'll be the guy in the trenches for the Pats, as they don't exactly have a ton of talent up front. Can the former third-round pick handle that sort of increase in responsibility?

The Patriots definitely needed help defensively, so we can't fault them for bringing in Williams. But there is no question that the Louisiana Tech product comes with a whole lot of bust potential at that salary.

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