Throughout most of the offseason, trade speculation swirled around New England Patriots quarterback Joe Milton III, so much so that new head coach Mike Vrabel was forced to comment on whether or not the 25-year-old Milton would be with the Patriots next season. It was an unusual situation given that Milton spent all of the 2024 season, with the exception of the final game, not as the prime back-up for rookie signal caller Drake Maye, but on the Patriots’ practice squad.

Milton was finally traded on Thursday, to the Dallas Cowboys, who acquire an economical backup as Milton remains on his rookie contract, totaling $4.2 million, for another three seasons.

Milton comes with world-class athletic ability that includes a cannon for an arm that has earned him the nickname “Bazooka Joe.” His former quarterbacks coach at Tennessee, Joey Halzle, has said that Milton “is physically the most talented quarterback I’ve been around, and I’ve been around a lot of guys that have been drafted really high. The arm talent, everybody knows about. The strength, flexibility, ability to run — high, high, high-level athlete. He’s a physical specimen on the football field.”

Milton Slow to Master NFL-Level Skills

Nonetheless, Milton had a reputation in the collegiate ranks for never being able to master the basic football skills — as opposed to the raw physical talents — that would make him an NFL quarterback. He showed development later in his college career, however, winning the 2023 Orange Bowl MVP in the Volunteers victory over the Clemson Tigers, and finally earning a full-time starter’s position in his sixth and final year in college.

Milton spent three years in Tennessee’s program after three frustrating years at Michigan where he was restricted to 152 pass attempts in 16 games.

Milton Accused of Having Sense of Entitlement

But in Week 18 of 2024, Milton gave a strong taste of his potential when he was handed the ball, albeit in a largely meaningless game in terms of the standings, against the AFC East-winning Buffalo Bills.

Against a Bills team comprised mostly reserves, as was the Patriots team in that game, Milton put on a show, completing 22 of 29 passes including a touchdown, and running for another touchdown while eluding pass rushers and unleashing, at one point, the second-fastest pass ever recorded in the history of timed NFL passes.

That performance set the stage for Milton to become a trade commodity. But according to longtime Patriots reporter Tom E. Curran of NBC Sports Boston, speaking on his Patriots Talk podcast, it was not his impressive single-game showing that led to the trade. It was Milton’s “entitled” character, and a belief that he — not 2024 No. 3 overall pick Drake Maye — deserved to start at quarterback for the Patriots.

“Milton didn’t think the gap was all that big between he and Drake Maye,” Curran said on the podcast Friday. “I immediately go back to Mike Vrabel saying at his opening press conference as head coach of the Patriots that he’s going to rid entitlement from the building. That that feels a little entitled. That feels like you don’t know your role. So it doesn’t surprise me given Vrabel’s desire to have the kind of locker room culture that he wants that they went ahead and made this move.”

Patriots Traded Milton For Low Value, Insider Says

The move, of course, was to ship Milton to the Cowboys — who also have a well-established starter in quarterback Dak Prescott. The Patriots sent Milton and a seventh-round pick to Dallas for a fifth-round pick, a price that many Patriots observers, including NBC Sports Boston Patriots insider Phil Perry, speaking on the same podcast, felt was too low.

“If he’s a sixth round pick can you get a fifth back?” Perry asked. “They got one of the last fifth round picks in this year’s draft back, and they had to include a seventh as well. And so you didn’t even improve on the value that Milton was originally given.”

Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. Vankin is also the author of five nonfiction books on a variety of topics, as well as nine graphic novels including most recently “Last of the Gladiators” published by Dynamite Entertainment. More about Jonathan Vankin