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Patriots Trade OL Josh Kline To Eagles For CB Eric Rowe

ESPN's Adam Schefter was the first to report the news, with NFL Network's Ian Rapoport adding news of the draft pick being part of the deal.

The Patriots were apparently prepared to trade the fourth-year veteran to the Eagles on Tuesday.

The team officially announced the move Wednesday morning, a deal that will send Rowe to the Patriots in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. It remains to be seen what the parameters of the conditional pick are, but it likely has to do with Rowe's performance. He played in all 16 games in is rookie season, starting five.

The change in defense's from Bill Davis' 3-4 scheme to Jim Schwartz' more aggressive 4-3 system shouldn't have bothered Rowe, but he fell on the depth chart nearly immediately and never moved back ahead of rookie seventh-round pick Jalen Mills or free agent acquisitions Leodis McKelvin and Ron Brooks. He was the 47th player taken overall.

But he was in new defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz's doghouse from Day 1 and was never close to getting the opportunity to regain his starting spot. He was listed as a third-string cornerback on the team's unofficial depth chart, released on Tuesday, behind second-stringer Jalen Mills, a seventh-round pick this past spring.

Rowe played safety and corner at Utah.

Nelson Agholor and Jordan Hicks are the only players left from last year's Kelly-engineered draft. Doug Pederson acknowledged that Rowe experienced "hiccups" early in the offseason and was "pulled back a little bit" as a result.

Update: Josh Kline is no longer coming to Philadelphia.

Eric Rowe's stats via pro-football-reference.com.

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Patriots Trade OL Josh Kline To Eagles For CB Eric Rowe