How Patriots DT Milton Williams Flipped From Panthers To New England

Former Eagles DT Milton Williams was one of the top free agents this offseason and made headlines after committing to sign with the Panthers and then backing out to join the Patriots.

Wililams ended up signing the richest free-agent deal by total value this offseason, agreeing to a four-year, $104 million contract to join New England. 

He initially thought nobody would beat the Panthers’ offer but outlined how the Patriots came in at the last second and prioritized him, which led to a late change of heart.

“My agent was on the phone, and I was kind of in the room,” Williams said, via Kevin Patra of NFL.com. “They were on the phone talking to teams, and teams were coming in with new deals. There was a lot going on, and it happened really fast. They talked about Carolina then, and I was like, ‘All right, it sounds like the best offer we are going to get, so we were going to go there.’ Then, a split second later, New England hopped on and was like, ‘Nah, this is what we got for you.’ Carolina felt like they went too high on their number, so they stayed where they were at. New England came in, and it was [over] after that. They wanted me the most and made me a priority. So, I made them a priority.”

Panthers EVP of football operations Brandt Tills gave his input on the situation, explaining how difficult it was to step away from an agreed deal. Although the organization wanted to bring Williams in, they wanted to stick to their plan to allocate their resources properly. 

“Yeah, of course, it’s hard to walk away from a deal,” Tilis said, via Darin Gantt of the Panthers’ website. “But at the same time, when we have a clear vision of what we want, and we have standards as far as value and things like that, it’s easier to walk away. And also it’s easy to make those decisions when we have the support of leadership, which is what we’ve got here.”

“When the Milton thing didn’t go our way, we were just following a plan. And even during the, if you want to call it a frenzy or whatever it was. We’re just operating our plan, and we were going through our process and talking to all the different players and just trying to take the resources that we had and put them in and put them to the most optimal use.”

Williams, 25, was a third-round pick to the Eagles out of Louisiana Tech in the 2021 NFL Draft. He signed a four-year, $5.1 rookie contract through 2024 and made a base salary of $3.1 million this past year.

In 2024, Williams appeared in all 17 games for the Eagles and recorded 24 total tackles, seven tackles for loss, five sacks, one forced fumble and one pass defended.

We had him included in our Top 100 2025 NFL Free Agents list.