Image courtesy of the New England Patriots

What we’ve known for most of the season is now official.

Trent Brown is no longer a Patriot.

Brown’s contract officially voided on Monday with no extension coming from New England as first reported by Jeremy Fowler. Free agency in the new league year begins March 13, although the new legal tampering period means it’s a bit earlier than that. The Patriots will face a $2 million dead salary cap hit from Brown’s prior contract.

While there’s always a chance Brown’s market doesn’t suit his desires and he winds up back in Foxborough, at this point that seems far-fetched.

When engaged and feeling like he’s being respected financially, Brown can still be an elite tackle. He also deserves credit for playing through multiple injuries last year. After games he was walking with a severe limp in the locker room for several weeks and played more games (11, started 8) than many of us expected him to given how rocky the relationship between he and Belichick appeared to be.

While his ending in New England won’t be remembered fondly, fans shouldn’t forget that he was a huge (literally and figuratively) part of the 2018 championship team. Remember how good the running game was against both LA teams in the postseason? Brown started all 16 games and the three playoff games that year.

If Brown was truly that much of a problem in locker rooms, he wouldn’t be entering his 10th year in the NFL. Any time we were ever in there when he was, he was quiet, polite and usually just chatted with teammates or kept to himself. Brown never acted out. Could he have been a menace at practice or behind closed doors? Of course, but he never did it when the media was around and if he really wanted to cause a stir, there’s always plenty of microphones, cameras and recorders around just waiting for someone to talk. He did express his displeasure about contract negotiations to Sophie Weller of A-to-Z Sports at one point, but he could have caused far more problems amongst all the turmoil if he really wanted to do so.

Could the effort coming into training camp in better shape be questioned? Yup. Did the contract play a factor early on with that effort? Absolutely. In the end, he most likely rubbed too many people the wrong way to risk bringing him back as the team tries to rebuild its image, but you can do much worse than Trent Brown.

Brown posted a video of himself working out on his Instagram story on Monday, and while it’s probably best for both parties to go their separate ways, let’s just hope the Patriots aren’t making a mistake when they desperately need help – and most importantly – continuity up front.