What Garrett Bradbury trade to Bears means for the Patriots

The New England Patriots offensive line will officially be having a different look this upcoming season. Starting center Garrett Bradbury is headed out the door: according to multiple reports, the team is trading him to the Chicago Bears in exchange for a 2027 fifth-round draft choice.

Bradbury was entering the final season of the two-year pact he signed with the Patriots last spring. And while he did start all 21 of the team’s games last season and proved himself a solid signing, his future was uncertain given his age, developmental outlook, and the presence of sophomore O-lineman Jared Wilson.

With all that in mind, let’s take a closer look at what the trade means for the Patriots.

The most obvious impact of trading Bradbury is that the Patriots will need a new starting center. There is one clear favorite on the roster, though, to take over: 2025 third-round draft pick Jared Wilson seems like a prime candidate to move back to his more natural position after spending his rookie season exclusively at left guard.

Despite being used in that previously unfamiliar spot, though, Wilson continued to also work at the center spot he filled during his college career at Georgia.

“Jared worked at both positions. We asked him to prepare as a starter each week at center, even though he didn’t have to,” said head coach Mike Vrabel at the NFL Scouting Combine last week. “I’m sure that he’ll do the same thing when we start [the offseason workout program] April 20.”

Wilson being the Patriots’ starting center in 2025 seems like a foregone conclusion. He is not the only player on the current roster capable of playing that position, though.

Ben Brown, who signed a two-year extension during the regular season, started 10 games for the Patriots at center in 2024.

If Wilson indeed kicks inside to fill Bradbury’s shoes at center, the Patriots will have new starters in two spots along their offensive line in the aftermath of the trade.

In the meantime, left guard becomes a major position of need. While the aforementioned Ben Brown looked solid during his four starts in place of an injured Wilson in 2025, and the Patriots also have Caedan Wallace and Mehki Butler as developmental options, some investment seems necessary to ensure the quality of the group.

What will that investment look like? It could come in the form of a veteran free agent signing, with a diverse group of starter-caliber players available. You have your stop-gap veterans such as Joel Bitonio or Isaac Suemalo, your upside youngsters like Zion Johnson, Dylan Parham or Alijah Vera-Tucker, and your steady-but-unspectacular group including David Edwards and John Simpson, among others.

In addition to those players, the Patriots also could look at the draft for some extra depth and potential. In our latest seven-round mock draft, we mentioned Fernando Carmona out of Arkansas as a player to consider. Carmona is one of several mid-to-late-round targets the Patriots could go after.

Regardless of what will happen, Mike Vrabel made clear what the team will try to do last week.

“We’re going to try to play with the best five, and we’re going to try to put our players in the best situation for them,” he said at the Combine. “Sometimes we also ask them to maybe do what’s best for the football team in order to get the best five, or in order to get the best three receivers, or in order to get the best D-line combination. That’s what we’ll continue to do.”

Culture was the big theme of the Patriots’ 2025 offseason, and the Bradbury signing perfectly fit the organization’s plan to rebuild in that area. His value extended beyond his abilities on the football field, after all; he also was a leader in the locker room and mentor for young linemen such as his likely successor, Jared Wilson.

How successful Wilson will be in that regard in 2026 has to be determined. The fact still remains, however, that Bradbury is the second well-respected veteran to depart the organization in the last few days; wide receiver Stefon Diggs was informed of his upcoming release earlier in the week.

With them out of the building, a lot of football knowledge and experience both on and off the field has left as well.

The Patriots sending Garrett Bradbury to Chicago will positively impact their salary cap in 2026 and their draft portfolio in 2027.

Let’s look at the cap impact of the trade first. Bradbury was scheduled to earn a base salary of $3.7 million this season, which now comes off the Patriots’ books alongside $850,000 in likely-to-be-earned per-game roster bonuses, $150,000 in offseason workout money, and $1 million in likely-to-be-earned playing time and playoff incentives. While his remaining $1.2 million signing bonus will remain with New England, that still creates gross savings of $5.7 million.

Considering that another player will take his spot on the Top 51 list of biggest cap hits, however, the net savings of the move is slightly lower. Trading Bradbury saves the Patriots $4.695 million against the salary cap. According to cap expert Miguel Benzan, the team now is $61.64 million under the NFL’s spending ceiling.

As far as the increase in draft capital is concerned, the Patriots now own nine selections in 2027. Besides all of their originally allotted seven picks, they also received a fifth-rounder from the Bears plus a sixth-rounder in the trade that sent wide receiver Ja’Lynn Polk to New Orleans last year.