After losing Aidan Hutchinson, likely for the season but with the faint idea he could play in the Super Bowl if they get there, the Detroit Lions are somewhere in the market for an edge rusher. How aggressive they'll be on the trade market will not be fully shown until they acquire someone. If they acquire someone.
The mere mention of the New England Patriots is probably still enough to make Lions' fans cringe, due to Matt Patricia's ill-advised effort to bring the "Patriot Way" to Detroit when he was head coach. But this is a different for both franchises, with the Lions looking like the sustainable contender and the post-Bill Belichick Patriots in a state of rebuild/percolating dysfunction.
At 1-6 after Sunday's loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in London, the Patriots should be clear trade deadline sellers. Looking at their edge rusher situation, Josh Uche makes a lot of sense as a trade target for the Lions and ESPN's Jeremy Fowler more or less confirmed their interest a couple days ago.
"The Lions are doing their due diligence on the pass-rush market, looking for help replacing Aidan Hutchinson (tibia/fibula). For their matchup this week against Minnesota, they will roll with James Houston, Josh Paschal and new addition Isaiah Thomas off the edge.... Browns defensive end Za'Darius Smith could also be a name to watch here. And teams have interest in Pats sub rusher Joshua Uche, too....Uche and Smith are on low-base salaries this year (Smith at $1.2 million, Uche at $1.3 million), which makes them quite tradeable."
But there is another Patriots' pass rusher who shapes up as an interesting potential trade target for the Lions.
Young, underrated edge rusher offered as trade target for Lions
On his latest list outlining one trade target for each NFL team before the deadline, after Hutchinson's injury and before Week 7's games, FanSided's Nick Villano went with Patriots' edge rusher Keion White for the Lions.
"Keion White has four sacks in six games. He’s a 2023 second-round pick, so the Patriots won’t let him go for nothing. He is a monster on the defensive line (6’5, 285 lbs.). It has everything the Lions will look for. White is good enough to take over for Hutchinson in the short term, and when he returns (whether that’s the playoffs or next season), he’s good enough and cheap enough to play alongside Hutchinson."
Through seven games now, White still has four sacks and all of them came over the first two games of the season. But Pro Football Focus has him graded as the 27th-best edge defender in the league, with a top-10 pass rush grade (84.9). And he does have the size (6-foot-5, 285 pounds) the Lions want in an edge guy.
The big question is if the Patriots would part with White. He's 25 years old, in his second season and he was a second-round pick in 2023. So he could (should?) be seen as part of the future in New England, especially if their core identity will be defense under head coach Jerod Mayo.
But if general manager Brad Holmes has made a call to the Patriots about Uche, there's a non-zero chance he asked about White. He was most likely told they're not trading him absent an "offer they can't refuse", so Uche still stands as the Patriots' edge rusher who's most likely to be in play for the Lions between now and the trade deadline.