The Patriots are conspiring and it’s (kind of) working

Things with the Patriots are never as clear cut as they seem.

On Monday, rumors began circulating that New England was interested in trading wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell. That’s surprising, but also pretty normal as far as Patriots rumors go. The Patriots always seem to be plotting their next trade.

Then a rumor came that the reason for the Patriots’ interest in trading Mitchell was their faith in wide receiver Kenny Britt. This is the same Kenny Britt who was cut by the Browns before the end of the 2017 season and signed with the Patriots in the final weeks of the year. In 12 regular season games last season, Britt had 20 catches for 256 yards and 2 touchdowns. Only two of those catches came in New England. He didn’t add to that in the playoffs.

The Patriots have hardly gotten a good look at Britt to have such faith in him and want to trade away their 2016 fourth round pick as a result of Britt’s potential.

But then the story twisted a bit more as it was revealed Mitchell had knee surgery on Monday and his season “looks to be in jeopardy.” He’s not expected to be on the field to start training camp and it sounds like Monday’s procedure was done to get a better look at the damage to his knee.

This might sound a bit like a conspiracy theory, but what if the Patriots put out a rumor that they were trying to trade Mitchell just so it wouldn’t sound as bad to their fans when it was announced he was out for an extended period of time. And at the same time, they hyped up Britt to give him some confidence going into training camp.

Plausible? I think so. But, also complete speculation.

The Patriots are plotters and this would be quite the plot. But based on the timeline of Monday’s events, it all sounds a bit fishy and perfectly Patriots.

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