Sign Some, Lose Some: Joe Thuney Goes to Kansas City

Getty Images.

Advertisement

Believe it or not, there are still large segments of the old New England sports media that are left over from the pre-Barstool days. Pockets of resistance still fighting the wars of the 1990s, back when everything was terrible and they were above it all sitting in judgment of easy targets like Rick Pitino and Dan Duquette and so forth. And if there's anyone they have more contempt for than the Patriots organization, it's the fans who support it after two decades of unprecedented, unimaginable success.

So it's at times like this, when the Pats lose a key contributor to free agency, and fans accept it without canceling their season tickets, or demanding GM Bill's' head on a pike, or yelling at GM Nike that he's a bad boy, we get hammered for being soft on management. Worse, we get accused of disparaging the player who left. Like anything short of us signing mass suicide pacts is disrespectful to the guy who left. It's a lame straw man argument. When you say a good player will be replaced, it's not saying he sucked; it's a statement of fact. Players leave. Especially when they've been successful on great teams. This franchise withstood major departures for 20 years and kept finding ways to win. In that way, it's been unlike any franchise in the league for 20 years and more like a great college program that finds a way to sustain itself. 

So if you take away nothing else about what I'm about to say, remember that I said this: Joe Thuney is great. He will be missed. His is one of the truly inspiring success stories. He came in as a 3rd rounder (78th overall), and was tasked with the impossible job of replacing the second best guard in franchise history, Logan Mankins. And in every way, shape or form imaginable, he succeeded. 

In his five seasons, Thuney has never missed a game, regular- or postseason. If he missed a snap, no one remembers it. In over 6,200 career snaps, he's given up a total of 13 sacks and 155 pressures of any kind. He committed three penalties in all of 2020, and none the year before that. He was instrumental in winning three rings. None more so then absolute shutout he, David Andrews and Shaq Mason pitched against Aaron Donald and the Rams interior pass rush in Super Bowl LIII. The fact he is now getting paid the huge Chiefsbucks is a good. It sucks to lose him. 

It's also the way it works. This was as close to inevitable as anything could be. The Pats Franchised him last year. Another Franchise Tag year would've been untenable. It was reported they were hoping to bring him back and were in talks. But a talented player hit the market at precisely the right time and got PAID. 

Good for Thuney. I might question the Chiefs for doing it, since their immediate crisis that they released both their tackles, had no protection on the outside without them in the last Super Bowl and still need to cut payroll. But if that plan involves signing a pure interior O-lineman, I won't question it. I'll just assume there is a plan and go about my business. 

But the reason New England is not in a panic is because Thuney's departure was part of their plan. They saw it coming. Delayed the inevitable with the tag last year. And prepared for it through the draft and trades. In their case, the acquisition last week of Trent Brown gives them the option of sliding Isaiah Wynn into Thuney's spot. Or having Wynn replace Marcus Cannon (traded to Houston over the weekend to slide up 11 draft spots in three different rounds) at RT, then move Michael Onwenu to his natural guard spot. Then Onwenu, whose emergence as a rookie last year as a sixth round pick eventually made the loss of Thuney palatable. In very much the same way the team was able to move on from Mankins to Thuney. Because that's how business is done around here.

So godspeed to Joe Thuney, who's been one of the truly good ones. He'll be missed. but he'll be replaced. And they'll get a compensatory pick for him, develop another great OG and replace the replacements, as they've always done. It's a Circle of Life Thing.