The Patriots had already begun the process of waiving their 2024 third-round pick, and reports from Jordan Schultz indicated the move was underway. Before it went through, the Patriots announced they had instead traded Wallace and a 2029 seventh-round pick to the Miami Dolphins for a 2028 sixth-round pick. ESPN’s Mike Reiss confirmed the terms on X: “The Patriots announce that G Caedan Wallace has been traded to the Dolphins along with a 2029 seventh-round pick in exchange for a 2028 sixth-round pick.” — Mike Reiss on X
New England also re-signed long snapper Niko Lalos as part of the same roster shuffle, per the team’s announcement.
A Third-Round Pick Who Never Found a Position
The Patriots took Wallace 68th overall in 2024 out of Penn State, where he started at right tackle for four years and finished his college career well enough to earn All-Big Ten honorable mention. New England drafted him as a tackle prospect. He never really played tackle in New England.
An ankle injury cost him 11 games as a rookie. Mike Vrabel’s staff then moved him inside to guard for 2025 — a position Pats Pulpit notes he’d practiced at Penn State but had never actually played in a real game, college or pro. The results were thin: four games, one meaningful offensive snap that mattered — spelling in at left guard against the Jets in a game New England had already salted away. He was inactive for the entire Super Bowl run, including the win over Seattle.
That’s the part of this that should get more attention than it will: a converted tackle, learning guard on the fly, on a team that kept adding proven bodies up front. Vera-Tucker, Onwenu, Wilson, Ben Brown, Andrew Rupcich — that’s a lot of established players clogging the depth chart at the exact spot the Patriots asked Wallace to learn from scratch. He didn’t fail so much as get boxed out by his own team’s roster-building.
Why Miami, and Why Now
Two things make the timing make sense. First, the cap math is trivial for New England — Pats Pulpit reports Wallace’s 2026 cap hit drops from $1.648 million to $303,782 in dead money, the kind of housekeeping teams do constantly in late camp. Second, Miami isn’t broadcasting patience. A team retooling its roster can afford to see what a former Day 2 pick looks like with a clean depth chart in front of him instead of five bodies ahead of him.
There’s a wrinkle nobody’s flagged yet: Wallace is walking into a building with his old Penn State teammate. The Dolphins took edge rusher Chop Robinson 21st overall in that same 2024 draft, the same weekend New England grabbed Wallace on Day 2. Two guys who shared a locker room in State College are now sharing one in Miami — not something either front office was chasing, but a fun footnote to a trade that otherwise reads as pure roster logistics.
None of this makes Wallace a lock to start in Miami. It does mean he’s getting what New England’s o-line depth chart never gave him: an actual runway. Whether that’s guard or a return to tackle is Miami’s call to make, and it’s the more interesting story than anything happening in Foxborough this week.
What’s Left in New England
The Patriots’ interior line now runs through Vera-Tucker, Onwenu, Wilson, Brown and Rupcich, with the 2028 sixth-rounder added to a draft capital sheet that already includes six selections that year. It’s a minor return for a player who logged 10 total games in two seasons, but that was close to the ceiling of what New England was going to get for him.
