The reality here is that the Pats would have loved to keep Trey and sign him long term. He did everything you could ask for in a player.
However, The Pats don't operate in a vacuum and there are other teams out there that impact what we can and want to do with players. Most of us knew that at least one team was going to throw stupid money at him and as we saw, that's exactly what the Lions did.
It's not in our interest to match it or offer anything like that. When you throw out contacts like the one the Lions just gave him, you basically kill the middle class of the team and tremendously weaken team depth. You can't have both.
I loved Trey and am enormously grateful fall he did for the Pats. Especially appreciative of his work ethic and professionalism. And I wish him the very best. But to pay him that kind of money weakens the team more than retaining him at that salary would. Unfortunately, he had to go. Same with Brown. Sensible economics in football is not sexy but for the smart GM's like ours, it has to be a driving, albeit unpopular force.
