Report: The Wild Ride of Kayshon Boutte in NE Has Come to an End With a Trade to Houston

Welp, it was fun while it lasted. It seems as though the Texans liked what they saw of Kayshon Boutte, even as he broke them in the Divisional round game in Foxboro:

So we don't know what the pick is. And Jaylen Reed feels like a bit of a throw-in, since he was a 6th rounder out of Penn State last year and didn't see the field until Week 10 of his rookie season. But he did play all of both of Houston's two postseason games. Including taking 53 snaps in that game at Gillette (giving up two completions on two targets, one to Stefon Diggs and a 1-yard loss to Rhamondre Stevenson). So it's quite possible the Patriots liked what they saw in him as well. Granted, safety is one of their strongest positions. But after Saturday night's game, Mike Vrabel talked about how weak his team's depth is, so Reed might be a way of addressing that. 

But the story here is Boutte. A guy I and a lot of Patriots fans were hoping would find his place here in the Year of Our Lord 2026:

…  despite the numbers game. But as my tax guy tells me every mid-April, math doesn't care about my feelings. Which he demonstrates by making me write him a fat check. Keeping seven receivers was always going to be an impractical option. Boutte might have been one of the best deep threats in all of football last year (a passer rating of 141.4 on passes of 20+ air yards), but he took all of one special teams snap. Efton Chism returns kicks. 

For his part, Reed just happens to be a Core-4 special teamer. Even though he only appeared in six games, he was 17th on the Texans in total ST snaps. As Bill Belichick was fond of saying, and Vrabel demonstrated playing for him, the more you can do, the more valuable you can make yourself. 

But I digress. Boutte was a hell of a story. From the way he came here as a sixth rounder in 2023 after having his first round potential derailed by injury and that Bayou Fraud Brian Kelly, to becoming a legitmate deep threat in his third season. That's quite an accomplishment. Not to mention his personal saga:

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His is a true redemption arc. And had Vrabel and Elliot Wolf not done such a remarkable job of building a deep WR room out of the scraps of the last few years (and the Ja'Lynn Polk/Javon Baker fiasco), we could be talking about him as a potential WR2 or even WR1. But with AJ Brown, Romeo Doubs, Mack Hollins, Chism and Kyle Williams:

… Boutte became expendable. 

Here's hoping that pick coming back lands us someone who can reach the same potential. Houston's not on the schedule this year. But if they happen to make it back to Foxboro for another playoff game, the applause for Boutte will be loud and long. And hopefully Jaylen Reed picks off CJ Stroud every time he targets Boutte. But I hope he does well against everybody else.