A visionary sports icon of our time once said “Money won is sweeter than money earned”, and as luck would have it, the Patriots might be able to get a 2021 sixth-round pick instead of a seventh-rounder from the Dallas Cowboys by doing everybody’s favorite Sunday activity:

Absolutely nothing.

With the Michael Bennett trade with Philly looking like classic Belichick finding $20 in his hoodie at the time and ending on what we can all agree was a sour note, the question wasn’t if Bennett was on his way out, just whether New England would be able to recoup anything for half a season’s worth of situational snaps. And given how the last couple weeks have gone down, when ESPN’s Mike Reiss reported that the 2021 seventh-rounder Dallas sent up north could turn into a sixth-rounder, surely your faithful author wasn’t the only one thinking it had to be based on snap counts or sacks or TFLs or something, right?

Per @AdamSchefter and @Schultz_Report: New England is trading DE Michael Bennett to the Dallas Cowboys for 7th-round pick that can go to a 6th-round pick in 2021. — Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) October 24, 2019

Shows you how much I know. The fact that Pats Pulpit even trusts me on a coffee run is a mystery.

Per NBC Sports Boston’s Phil Perry, that 2021 seventh becomes a sixth if Michael Bennett is on the roster for at least four (4) games. Yes, you read that correctly. All he has to do to hand the Patriots a higher pick is...not get fired.

ESPN’s Todd Archer added further clarification Friday: If Bennett is on Dallas’ 53-man roster for at least four games the rest of the way, the Patriots will receive the Cowboys’ 2021 sixth-round pick. Dallas has nine games remaining on its schedule, so it’s reasonable to expect Bennett will at least be on the roster for at least half of those. Then again, the 33-year-old didn’t work out in New England, and if the Cowboys can’t find a fit for Bennett, they can cut him loose or move him off the active roster knowing they’ll only owe the Patriots a seventh-rounder.

That’s it. Just make it halfway through the rest of the season.

I mean, sure, this is kind of a small consolation after thinking that Michael Bennett would be a beast in a Belichick defense and paying him accordingly only to have the whole experiment end like “I’ve made a terrible mistake”, but hey, you know what they say, when life gives you lemons, find someone whose life gave them vodka, and all that.

Also fun: that 4th game that would trigger the pick moving up a round is...Dallas at New England, Week 12. So if you see Bennett in the building when the Patriots host Dallas the week of Turkey Day, that’s what’s up.