The New England Patriots have agreed to send defensive tackle Davon Godchaux to the New Orleans Saints for a 2026 seventh-round pick, sources tell ESPN.

The Patriots had given Godchaux permission to seek a trade in February. 

The 30-year-old enters his ninth season and has two years remaining on the extension he signed last July, which included $16.5 million in guaranteed money. He is scheduled to earn salaries of $4 million in 2025 and $5.5 million in 2026. 

The Saints will take on salary cap hits of $5 million in 2025 and $7.5 million in 2026 if they do not restructure Godchaux's contract. They entered March needing to shed at least $40 million in cap space and potentially more to sign players in free agency, but they recently restructured the contracts of center Erik McCoy and quarterback Derek Carr to open up $38 million in 2025 space.

Godchaux, 6-foot-3 and 330 pounds, played in all 68 regular-season games over the past four years in New England, with 67 starts, mostly filling a two-down role as a run-stopping nose tackle. He spent the first four seasons of his career with the Dolphins, entering the NFL as a fifth-round draft pick out of LSU in 2017. He now returns to Louisiana once the trade can be processed this week.

The Patriots are establishing a new culture, and plan to run an aggressive defensive scheme under first-year head coach Mike Vrabel and defensive coordinator Terrell Williams, so they might not be placing as high of a value now on run-stuffing nose tackles like Godchaux.

The move could indicate a defensive shift for the Saints as well.

The Saints ran a 4-3 base defense under Dennis Allen, who took over as defensive coordinator during the 2015 season and was head coach from 2022 until he was fired midway through the 2024 season.

New Saints coach Kellen Moore hired defensive coordinator Brandon Staley, who is known for running a 3-4 base defense. The Saints also hired former defensive tackle Bo Davis away from LSU to coach the defensive line

"I think at the end of the day you're going to win the game and lose the game in nickel 4-2. So you're going to play with nickel, and that's how you're going to have to win games. So that's the most important thing," Moore said at the NFL scouting combine. "Now your other moves, whether they be 4-3 or 3-4, certainly there's flexibility within that. I think the beauty of it is Brandon's played a number of different ways, allow us to have some different versatile body types that can play a number of positions and we'll have flexibility within that."

The Saints had the second-worst run defense in the league in 2024, allowing 141.4. yards per game.

They have not yet made other personnel moves to revamp the defensive lines, but other notable defensive tackles on the Saints roster include Khalen Saunders, 28, who counts $4.6 million against the cap this year, and Nathan Shepherd, 31, who counts $7 million against the cap. They also have 2023 first-round pick Bryan Bresee, 23, who counts $3.3 million against the cap.

ESPN's Mike Reiss contributed to this report.