The New England Patriots almost had their pick of the litter in the 2025 NFL Draft. They were in perfect shape going up against the Buffalo Bills in Week 18 and all they needed to do was lose one more game, and they would have controlled the top of the draft order.

And then came Joe Milton’s offensive explosion, which led us to the stunning trade that just went down between the New England Patriots and Dallas Cowboys. Milton was traded, along with a 7th-round pick, to go and be Dak Prescott’s backup in Dallas for a 5th-round pick.

I guess it’s the least Milton could do for the Pats given the value differencce between the 1st overall pick and 4th overall pick is 1200 points on the trade value chart, or the value of the 12th overall pick.

Patriots missed out on 1st overall pick in 2025 thanks to Joe Milton

Joe Milton is trying to carve out his own career in the NFL. He played an outstanding game in the Patriots’ Week 18 win over the Buffalo Bills in which he had a whopping 14 first-down throws on 22 completions, a completion rate just under 76 percent, and two total touchdowns (1 passing, 1 rushing).

His performance in that game as well as in last year’s preseason obviously made an impression on the Cowboys, who not only lost Cooper Rush in NFL Free Agency but decided to move on from Trey Lance as well.

The Patriots have Drake Maye, which is certainly no consolation prize in all of this, but they could have paired Maye up with the #1 overall pick in this year’s draft if it weren’t for Milton’s unexpected offensive explosion in the final week of the 2024-25 regular season.

It seemed, at least in hindsight, like former Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo knew the writing was on the wall for him and he was going to do anything in his power to stick it to the Patriots, who telegraphed their move to Mike Vrabel from the very start of the offseason. It was similar to the way Lovie Smith and the Texans went out and cost themselves the #1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, though they sort of “lucked” into CJ Stroud.

The Patriots could have had their pick of top non-quarterbacks in this year’s draft, or they could have perhaps traded the #1 overall pick to the most QB-needy team behind them and still taken their top non-QB.

But that’s not happening now, thanks to Joe Milton.

Of course, some of this is tongue in cheek. Nobody wants to see Milton fail and he did great with his opportunity. But when it comes to building the team and the difference one pick slot can make, the Butterfly Effect looms large here.