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Last season, after his breakout year with the New England Patriots, the notion of not keeping Josh Uche around after his rookie contract was up would have seemed unthinkable. But Uche cooled this year, the Patriots have a new coach in Jerod Mayo, and the team figures to head in a different direction. Giving a sizable new contract to Uche just might not be in the plans.
That’s especially true after Uche’s numbers sagged this season. He notched 11.5 sacks last year but that total fell to 3.0 this year. There were other factors involved in Uche’s decline but overall, his grades at Pro Football Focus went from 83.1 on defense with an 81.8 grade on the pass rush in 2022 to 57.1 on defense with a 66.8 pass-rushing grade. Uche dropped from 14th among 119 edge rushers to 94th out of 118.
Uche and Mayo did work well together. And teammate Mack Wilson said of Uche, “Great guy, speed, can do everything. Definitely somebody I look up to even though he may be younger but he can play ball.”
Still, he is a free agent this offseason, and there is a distinct chance that the Patriots will let him walk. Despite ample cap space in New England, the team is expected to focus more resources on offense than it did under Bill Belichick, who tended to load up on defense and run the offense on a shoestring. At PFF, they’re urging the Pats’ AFC rivals, the Raiders, to make a push for Uche in free agency.
Raiders Could Use Uche With Maxx Crosby
Here’s how the folks at PFF put it in an article titled, “One free agent each NFL team should pursue in the 2024 offseason,” published on Wednesday:
“The Raiders ask a lot of Maxx Crosby in terms of workload, and while they added Tyree Wilson with the seventh pick of the 2023 NFL Draft, acquiring another productive pass rusher this offseason would help. Uche earned an 87.8 PFF pass-rushing grade and racked up 56 pressures from 285 pass-rushing snaps in 2022. The Raiders could bring him in as a pass-rushing specialist to give Crosby a breather.”
The Patriots, of course, could still keep Uche, depending on what the payout for him is. Pass-rusher is a premium position in the NFL, and even if Uche is a part-time player, he still figures to get paid. Maybe.
Spotrac projects Uche to get $14.5 million per year this offseason, on a four-year, $58 million contract. That might be high for a guy with a limited snap count, and PFF projects him getting a one-year, make-good deal worth $7.25 million, with a bigger payday coming if he can replicate his 2022 performance.
Patriots Josh Uche Explains Numbers Dip
As for 2023, Uche said there were reasons behind his decline in sack numbers this season. One was the absence of Patriots star linebacker Matthew Judon, who played only four games before going out for the year with a biceps injury. Uche had three quarterback hits in the first four games with Judon, then had only three more the rest of the year.
He also noted that he focused more on not just getting to the quarterback but containing him in the pocket last season. That, he claimed, made him more effective even if he was not hitting the quarterback as much.
“When it comes down to sacks and pressures and all that, I feel like what I put on film is most important. What coaches are seeing, what other players are seeing, and what people are actually seeing is more important than the overall outcome. Sometimes, the sacks, it takes perfect timing and everything to play out perfectly, and that’s not always the case. All you can do is just keep going. Just trying to put out good film,” Uche told Patriots.com in December.
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