After an unproductive first season in New England, JuJu Smith-Schuster was believed to be on the Patriots’ roster bubble. The team has already reached the endpoint with the 2023 free agency pickup.
The Pats are releasing Smith-Schuster on Friday, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport. This will give the former Steelers and Chiefs pass-catcher a chance to land with a team early, though the seven-year vet did not establish any momentum during an injury-marred 2023 slate.
While the rearranged Patriots front office has acknowledged quality work on Bill Belichick‘s part by extending or re-signing many of the players acquired during the legendary HC’s tenure, the Smith-Schuster acquisition will be a big miss. The Pats gave the former 1,400-yard receiver a three-year, $25.5M deal with $16M fully guaranteed. Smith-Schuster’s full 2024 base salary ($7M) was guaranteed, putting the Pats on the hook for a notable dead-money hit.
New England will be tagged with over $9.6M in dead money this year, with an additional $2.6M set to count on the team’s 2025 cap sheet. Offset language would cut into these penalties, but after a dismal showing in 2023, Smith-Schuster is unlikely to fetch too much on the open market.
Mentioned this offseason as a potential release candidate, Smith-Schuster is coming off a season involving knee trouble. The former Steelers second-rounder underwent knee surgery following Super Bowl LVII and said he was around 60% going into last season. It showed, as the USC alum produced a 29-catch, 260-yard stat line in 11 games. Smith-Schuster commanded the same full guarantee as four-year Pats contributor Jakobi Meyers, but the Raiders have made out better with their 2023 signing.
Smith-Schuster said he is fully healthy this offseason, putting a bounce-back season on the radar. However, this early August release pours some cold water on that prospect. That said, Smith-Schuster is still just 27. A team will surely take a flier on the eighth-year performer, as he has submitted quality work in the past.
The Chiefs missed Smith-Schuster — well, his 2022 version — last season, seeing its receiver group submit an uneven season that ultimately did not derail a second straight Super Bowl title. Smith-Schuster led the 2022 Kansas City championship team’s WR corps in yardage by a wide margin, accumulating 933 during his one-and-done season in Missouri. The Chiefs pursued Smith-Schuster for two offseasons, convincing him to leave Pittsburgh in 2022, but Andy Reid said the team’s 2023 offer was not particularly close to where the Patriots went.
The Steelers coaxed the best version of Smith-Schuster in 2018, a season that doubled as the AFC North club’s final effort with Antonio Brown. The 215-pound wideout totaled 1,426 yards; two years later, he helped Pittsburgh to a surprising AFC North title with a nine-touchdown showing. Smith-Schuster resisted a Chiefs pursuit in 2021, re-signing with the Steelers on a one-year deal. Given his original team’s receiver situation following the Diontae Johnson trade, it would not surprise to see a reunion emerge as a possibility.
This is a rather interesting conclusion on the Pats’ part, as Belichick regularly brings back former players whose higher-priced deals did not work out elsewhere. The Eliot Wolf-led regime is now the team cutting the cord on a bad investment, and this transaction will almost definitely lead to Smith-Schuster landing elsewhere on a lower-cost agreement.
