Patriots Player Departure Patriots are sending WR Kayshon Boutte to the Texans for safety Jaylen Reed and a draft pick

[PATSYLICIOUS]

My personal day 2 cope/rationalizing:

1. The message from the whole league is that Maye is HIM. They value our top WRs from last year as JAGs. Meaning they see Maye as the ultimate truth for putting up MVP numbers with that squad.

2. Kyle Williams made a jump and is the insurance. Mack Hollins will have a role but it is Williams who is expected to rise up should Doubs, Brown, or even Douglas go down. They have seen William's progress and are comfortable enough with it that there was no need for Boutte as insurance.

3. They really like Jaylen Reed from last year's draft board and his limited pro tape. They probably wanted him in the draft but were rather forced to choose a kicker right before Reed was drafted.

One thing i noticed was in the games boutte missed last year hollins went for 106 and 64 receiving yards. Boutte came back the following week but might not have been 100% and his production dropped off alot down the stretch but hollins continued to make up for it with good #s compared to pre boutte injury. If Williams can’t provide the insurance i have good faith in hollins.

 

[Mack Herron]

 

[upstater1]

My personal day 2 cope/rationalizing:

1. The message from the whole league is that Maye is HIM. They value our top WRs from last year as JAGs. Meaning they see Maye as the ultimate truth for putting up MVP numbers with that squad.

2. Kyle Williams made a jump and is the insurance. Mack Hollins will have a role but it is Williams who is expected to rise up should Doubs, Brown, or even Douglas go down. They have seen William's progress and are comfortable enough with it that there was no need for Boutte as insurance.

3. They really like Jaylen Reed from last year's draft board and his limited pro tape. They probably wanted him in the draft but were rather forced to choose a kicker right before Reed was drafted.

This is the best read I have seen yet.

But the curious thing to me is that all teams tend to value these metrics way too much.

Too much stock is placed on YAC, on speed, on separation, etc., and very little seems to ever be placed on the ability to track a ball, smoothly shift speeds to be able to position your body the right way to come down with it.

What Boutte can do is not well appreciated at all.

He doesn't have blazing speed, he doesn't get separation, he doesn't get YAC. These are held against him as negatives while his really high success rate is attributed to the QB. AND he was a 6th rounder!

 

[Rob0729]

But all this is meaningless if you don't include the yards.

Boutte's catch rate comes with 16 YPC.
Diggs's catch rate is with 11 YPC.

That makes a huge difference.

This is why they have other measures that bring the 2 stats together.

Not really when you consider the fact that Diggs was targeted more that twice as much (102 targets vs 46 targets). Maybe if you take away the shorter passes of Diggs to get him to 16 YPC, they would have a closer catch rate. But Diggs was targets 102 times (many times down the field) and caught 85 of them.

If you are going to say YPC means something that changes the discussion, then you have to admit so is # of targets. I would argue that # of targets is a bigger factor because when you drastically increase the number of targets, the odds are your catch rate should go down.

 

[upstater1]

One thing i noticed was in the games boutte missed last year hollins went for 106 and 64 receiving yards. Boutte came back the following week but might not have been 100% and his production dropped off alot down the stretch but hollins continued to make up for it with good #s compared to pre boutte injury. If Williams can’t provide the insurance i have good faith in hollins.

I thought Boutte did well on his return. Look at his first 2 playoff games. 9 targets, 7 receptions, 16 yards per catch, 1 TD. And this was against the league's best defense.

 

[PatsFan2]

But all this is meaningless if you don't include the yards.

Boutte's catch rate comes with 16 YPC.
Diggs's catch rate is with 11 YPC.

That makes a huge difference.

This is why they have other measures that bring the 2 stats together.

KW had only 209yds his Rookie year 72 was on one play against Tampa. So he had 137 yards the rest of the way on 10 catches; yeah we gonna need way more than that this year.

 

[RobertWeathers]

He was WR4 at best. He wasn't going to start on the outside and he wasn't the starting slot receiver, nor was he the backup slot receiver. His best opportunity was to be the top backup outside receiver, but that will likely be a rotation of Williams and Hollins. Boutte certainly would've been in the mix if he were still here, but he would have needed to command a big share of those backup snaps to get more than 10ish snaps a game, which wasn't particularly likely without an injury.

Correct.

When you add Gilliam's snaps and depending on how TE2 develops they may play even more 12, 21 and 22 than last year.

 

[upstater1]

Not really when you consider the fact that Diggs was targeted more that twice as much (102 targets vs 46 targets). Maybe if you take away the shorter passes of Diggs to get him to 16 YPC, they would have a closer catch rate. But Diggs was targets 102 times (many times down the field) and caught 85 of them.

But this isn't even the argument, really. I have nothing bad to say about Diggs. I like him. He's actually one of the league's best. But you have to look at Boutte's numbers against the rest of the league and all WRs. His target rate plus yards is right at the very highest in the entire NFL.

 

[upstater1]

KW had only 209yds his Rookie year 72 was on one play against Tampa. So he had 137 yards the rest of the way on 10 catches; yeah we gonna need way more than that this year.

Agree. This decision rests entirely on William's performance. I expect him to get a lot of reps now. And that's even before thinking about possible injuries.

 

[Clonamery]

I agree with ya but you should have not used garlic knots as an analogy
I snort a bakers dozen just to warm up

Not that there's anything wrong with that but I prefer pizza.

 

[Clonamery]

RE: Schooler - it's also worth remembering that Schooler is still on the NFI list. Reed's presence might let them be more comfortable leaving Schooler there to start the year. The 7th WR logjam is also resolved, which opens a roster spot for someone else.

That's why I mentioned him (short-term or lomg-term solution).

 

[Brotherblues]

RE: Schooler - it's also worth remembering that Schooler is still on the NFI list. Reed's presence might let them be more comfortable leaving Schooler there to start the year. The 7th WR logjam is also resolved, which opens a roster spot for someone else.

I may get stoned for this, but I don't like guys being comfortable carrying the "special teams baton" and making that their whole thing. I want players who use special teams hustle as a way to hold on as they still claw and fight for a role on offense or defense.

 

[PatsFan2]

Agree. This decision rests entirely on William's performance. I expect him to get a lot of reps now. And that's even before thinking about possible injuries.

I really like KW Pre Draft he had a really nice tape. I want them to scheme in some of the short Routes he had success with in College.

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

Could be wrong, but I had always thought Vrabel wasn’t too specific on fs/ss types and it was more of a s1/s2 situation where both are reasonably versatile. If this is the case he could still play next to Woodson even if hes a different player than byard.

I still don’t know a ton about reed but from what i read after the trade he has good speed and has even pitched in at nickel (per barth and kays) so he sounds pretty versatile.

I think you might be right. Reed was more a box safety type in draft reviews but in two 2025 highlight videos I saw after posting yesterday, Reed was playing deep safety. As you note, Reed is fast enough (high 4.4s) and he must be instinctual if Vrabel wants him. Probably S1 and S2 type like you say. And we saved $3.6M on the trade plus Reed is here 3 more years on a rookie deal. Not a great trade, but maybe not too bad.

 

[Rob0729]

But this isn't even the argument, really. I have nothing bad to say about Diggs. I like him. He's actually one of the league's best. But you have to look at Boutte's numbers against the rest of the league and all WRs. His target rate plus yards is right at the very highest in the entire NFL.

Again, when you factor in # of targets, it diminishes that argument. Here is the the rankings of the best YPC receivers last year. You will see that with the exception of a few elite or at least top 10ish WRs for the most part, most of them are low catch volume guys. Of the top 10 receivers in that category, six of them have 611 yards or less. Out of the top 20 receiver in that category, only 5 have more than a 1,000 yards (six if you count Embuka with 938 yards).


And if you look a lot of these top receivers in these categories with similar yardage as Boutte also had high catch rates.

YPC favors receivers with fewer catches because they aren't used as much other than medium and deep routes. That is why Boutte is better as a back up.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/player/_/stat/receiving/table/receiving/sort/yardsPerReception/dir/desc

 

[Clonamery]

I may get stoned for this, but I don't like guys being comfortable carrying the "special teams baton" and making that their whole thing. I want players who use special teams hustle as a way to hold on as they still claw and fight for a role on offense or defense.

Given the importance of STs and the historical presence of certain beloved STs players only, it's a knot-take. Larry Izzo, Matthew Slater, Nate Ebner, Brenden Schooler. Not many but often Pro Bowl worthy.

 

[PatsFan2]

Fun Fact Patriots lost Safety Jaylinn Hawkins in FA replaces him with another safety Jaylen Reid.

 

[moosekill]

Not that there's anything wrong with that but I prefer pizza.

They both go very well together.

 

[TheRainMaker]

Consensus I’m seeing is most fans hate this trade and wanted Boutte to stay.

 

[moosekill]

Consensus I’m seeing is most fans hate this trade and wanted Boutte to stay.

Once again, adding value.