By Dianna Russini, Chad Graff and Rebecca Tauber
The New England Patriots are trading wide receiver Ja’Lynn Polk and a 2028 seventh-round draft pick to the New Orleans Saints for a 2027 sixth-round pick, league sources said Saturday.
Polk, a 2024 second-round pick, is out for the season due to shoulder surgery. The wide receiver also had shoulder surgery earlier in the offseason.
Polk struggled in his rookie year, finishing with 12 catches on 33 targets for 87 yards over 15 games. He was 37th in receiving yards by a rookie last season.
TRADE: The Patriots are trading WR Ja’Lynn Polk and a 2028 7th-round pick to the Saints for a 2027 6th-round pick, per sources.
Polk is currently on season-ending IR recovering from a shoulder injury. pic.twitter.com/o5ypHugs5K
— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) September 13, 2025
Polk’s time with the Patriots was a bust
Polk now becomes the latest in a long line of wide receiver busts picked by the Patriots.
There was hope that the selection of Polk would go differently from other highly drafted receivers for the franchise since it was made by Eliot Wolf and not Bill Belichick. But Polk was a bust from the start.
He caught less than half of his targets as a rookie. His best game came in Week 4 last year when he notched three catches on seven targets for 30 yards.
In the bigger sense, the pick is emblematic of why the Patriots have one of the worst rosters in the NFL. They so badly need a receiver to help young quarterback Drake Maye, but top-notch wide receivers generally don’t hit free agency, and they’re tough to trade for. That makes it so important to draft and develop the position.
And that’s where the Patriots have failed. The Pats drafted Tyquan Thornton in the second round in 2022 and cut him before his third season was complete. They picked N’Keal Harry in the first round in 2019, only for him to last just three seasons and notch only 57 catches in 33 games. Now they’ve jettisoned Polk after it appeared that he might not make the team out of training camp, even before the shoulder injury landed him on injured reserve.
The Patriots hope they’re turning around their trend at receiver after picking Kyle Williams in the third round this April. But one week into the season, he’s buried on the depth chart and currently their No. 5 receiver.
This trade also punctuates just what a disaster the team’s 2024 draft was. Outside of Drake Maye, only one other player from that class remains on the team, and that’s offensive lineman Caedan Wallace, who is so buried on the depth chart that he was inactive for the team’s season opener. — Chad Graff, Patriots beat writer
(Photo: Winslow Townson / Getty Images)
