I'd rather have another JAG at wide receiver and Cannon than an upgrade at wide receiver and a JAG at tackle.
2019 Patriots: Post-SB Roster Thread
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Gordon working out at TB12 gym: https://sports.yahoo.com/josh-gordon-working-tom-brady-145954361.html
It's been updated. He is in Florida, but wearing TB12 gear.
Also confirms that the Patriots gave him a ring.
They have Diggs and Treadwell plus adding someone in FA. For the Pats, I have confidence in Dante to groom someone at RT that could do just as well as Cannon. Whether it's re-signing Waddle, bringing Fleming back, or drafting someone to plug and play I would have the utmost confidence that he could make it work.
I don't agree with either of these. Treadwell has been awful so far, and 4th receiver Aldrick Robinson is a FA. Minnesota would have Diggs and little else. As for Cannon, he is still a good player and not trivial to replace. We will already have questions at the other tackle spot with Wynn having missed his rookie year with injury. Both teams would be gutting the unit they're trading from.
Franchise deadline is 4 PM. I’m told we shouldn’t expect the patriots to apply the tag to anyone. Only candidates would really be Flowers and Gostkowski.
I can see the Vikings considering this more for a LT or interior lineman. I just don't believe an average RT is worth a quality receiver
Cap keeps going up, there are several teams with a lot of cap space, and basically every other premium/near premium pass rusher due to be a free agent is either tagged or was re-signed.
Dude is gonna get a deal comparable or north of JJ Watt and Fletcher Cox, and probably by someone other than the Pats.
Good for him, the market broke right for him but he did everything he could to position himself to capitalize on it.
Dude is gonna get a deal comparable or north of JJ Watt and Fletcher Cox, and probably by someone other than the Pats.
Good for him, the market broke right for him but he did everything he could to position himself to capitalize on it.
Good for him is right. Played in 1 game as a rookie in 2015. Was fantastic down the stretch in 2016, then continued that in 2017 and 2018. He's earned is payday.
I think Flowers is a very good player, but I don't know if his 2017 and 2018 seasons were "fantastic" for a 17m/year DE. If that's the price range, it's an easy decision to let him walk.
Lawrence, Clark, Clowney and Ford all got tagged. Flowers is going to have a ton of interest because there just aren't too many other options.
I'm still kind of skeptical of these PFF kind of stats. Not denying he had a very good year, just that the expectations for that kind of money are that you'll get a guy who will take over games, and I haven't seen that kind of ability from him yet.
Yes. But every year we post “BB hates this draft.”
I am at the point of not worrying. It took a long time, but I have arrived. I was consumed last year with the LBs sucking and WR situation being abysmal. So much for that.
They’ll figure something out. And if they don’t and fall on their faces for two years running, I’ll get back to worrying.
Meanwhile, Hakuna Matata.
You could probably count on one hand the number of defensive players who can take over games. Flowers is a difference-maker; I think he's a lot more consistent as a pass rusher than Chandler Jones, for instance, though Jones had gaudier sack totals. I probably wouldn't pay him $17 MM / year though.
I feel like Flowers is going to have a low bust rate on this next contract. He is so consistent that even though $17M seems like a few million / year too much, I think his next team will be happy with his production. We’ve never really seen him on a line with another high end talent so it will be interesting to see how he looks on his next team.
I think people underrate the chances of the Patriots making a very competitive open market offer to Flowers. Tagging him never made sense because a $17M cap number for 2019 would have been prohibitive. But I expect them to make him a very competitive offer and I think there is a decent chance that he comes back. The Pats have this reputation of not paying players but its not really true. They made McCourty one of the highest paid safeties in the league. Four years after that contract was signed, there are still only four other guys with higher AAV safety contracts, even with big cap appreciation during that time. The contract they gave Gilmour was one of the biggest CB contracts ever at the time and its still the 7th biggest CB contract by AAV. Just as importantly, the team is going to lose a number of their most impactful players during the 2019-2020 window (due to contracts expiring, retirements, and aging), those losses are going to free up a huge amount of cap space, but they've got almost nobody internal to spend on because the 2016 and 2017 drafts were such busts. This team will always spend to the cap so if they're not spending big for a guy like Flowers in the free agent market now that just means they're going to be spending big in the free agent market after 2019 and 2020. And Belichick probably values Trey Flowers more than your average team while valuing a lot of other potential free agents less.
I go back and forth on this. The Patriots have tended to de-emphasize pass rushers, not drafting them highly and not paying them much. I do think Flowers' ability to kick inside and win against interior linemen makes him pretty special and a different animal from a Chandler Jones who was really just a pure 4-3 DE.
At the end of the day, I think the price is going to get pretty high. Flowers is just 25, so even teams that might not be ready to compete now (like the Jets or 49ers) might be interested in him as a long-term cornerstone. Such teams would probably have little interest in Justin Houston, for instance, but there's so much cap space out there that the Patriots really can't compete if it turns into a bidding war.
I think that's right. I'm sure BB also really values Flowers' ability as a run defender as well as his toughness and ability to stay on the field. Beyond superstar generational players, its a bit hard to imagine a DE that Belichick would like more than Trey Flowers.
Unfortunately, I agree with that too. The market has shaped up perfectly for Flowers, not so much for the Patriots. Given the market, we are certainly underdogs to resign him. But some people seem to be treating this as a foregone conclusion whereas the true chance of us keeping him might be more in the 20-30% range or something, which is not inconsiderable.
One big X factor for me is the sack numbers. On the one hand, you'd think that NFL front offices are sophisticated enough to look beyond sacks and focus on pressure rate as well as the other qualities that Flowers brings to the table. On the other hand, NFL personnel people are often surprisingly risk averse when it comes to big moves that might seem to depart from conventional wisdom. My guess is that there might be a number of GMs out there who simply cannot bring themselves to pull the trigger on giving a $6/90M or $6/100M contract to a DE that has never registered more than seven sacks in a season, no matter what the advanced stats say. Of course it only takes one team to significantly outbid the Patriots for Flowers to leave.
I agree - watching him play.. getting the pressures but not necessarily the sacks while also being able to win inside battles and be stout against the run.. last time I saw a DE on the Pats versatile like this that didn't necessarily put up the "numbers" was Seymour.
For what its worth I was at a Q&A with Mike Reiss a few months back and he stated that BB absolutely loves Flowers and felt that he was the one player that BB would stretch for, given that Flowers was a three down player, similar in mode to Seymour (as mentioned above).
while I agree with your overall point, https://overthecap.com/position/safety/ has him seventh. It's also worth noting that the safety market last year was really bad for contracts, I think the highest in terms of AAV was honey badger's 7 million deal with the Texans, and that was only for one year.
May help long term, but the vast majority of Patriots Draft picks end up essentially red-shirting their rookie year. We saw this with Flowers himself.
My original post was a bit unclear I guess. There are currently four other safeties with higher AAVs. He's seventh on that list because two of the contracts (Thomas and Joyner) have ended.
However you want to slice it, they made him one of the highest paid players in the league at his position. His deal was only a hair behind Earl Thomas' extension.
It's not a question of whether BFB loves Flowers or whether they can find cap space for him. The answer is yes to both. What matters is whether his open market rate is high enough that bringing him back causes them to short other parts of the roster. This offseason is like any other in that regard. Numerous holes to fill, tons of draft picks, some guys back, some guys not. SSDD.
As others have said above, the market for DE and the availability of cap space point to Flowers pricing out of NE. Hope not, but it seems likely.
As others have said above, the market for DE and the availability of cap space point to Flowers pricing out of NE. Hope not, but it seems likely.
I agree with this.
One of the Pats writers, I think it was Tom Curran but not sure, wrote while Hightower was testing the market that the Patriots actually prefer their players test the market when they are closing in on free agency.
Their thinking is they'd rather the player see what's out there, then if they decide to re-sign with the Patriots there is little chance they'll be grumbling about their contract down the road since they knew exactly what else was available to them.
They may be right. The only guy I can remember complaining about their contract after signing it is Gronk, who signed way before he could've hit free agency.
I do think Flowers is a guy they'll stretch for, but if they think he's worth say 11-12M, and he gets offered 17M, I can't imagine them stretching that far. But I do think they'll go a million or two per year over what they think is fair to keep him.
If I were Flowers' agent, any offer from the Pats has start with the 2 guaranteed years that he'd get by franchising him twice. I believe that would be around $37 million guaranteed. Somewhere around 5 years, $75 million with $40 million guaranteed would be a baseline of which Flowers should be asking.
Pats will probably do that, but the figures I gave would be the least I'd accept if I were Flowers.
I don't think that's a reasonable baseline---Pats would say in response "we would have franchised you twice if we thought that was the market/value to us" I get you are describing the agent's ask, but I think realistically the agent would do better getting an offer and bringing it back rather than ask for something he already knows the pats decided not to do.
He'll do that because the Patriots didn't believe he'd get as much as the tag on the open market. In a counter offer however the agent will bring up what I described. I'm sure the Pats are well aware it will take a lot to keep him.
Who is Steve Balestrieri and is he reliable / relevant? He is claiming the Pats and Brady are close to an extension.
No, I think that's extraordinarily unlikely. The Pats and the agent have already exchanged numbers. We only know that the Pats offer had to be below the franchise number, because if it weren't they would have just franchised him (granted, there's a little ambiguity as to length within that). Given those realities, we can be pretty sure the agent wouldn't now offer something he knows the team will say "no" to because that's silly---and because I'm sure both Pats and the agent had a pretty good sense of the market beforehand anyway.
I do agree that once he has actual offers, he will bring one back to the Pats. And that's where the discussion will move.
Honestly I don’t even think we can 100% say the Pats value him at less than the franchise number. They clearly don’t like to use the tag for a variety of reasons. One of which could be that franchising him ties up $17m this year whereas a 5 year deal with $35M guaranteed could result in a cap hit of say $8M this year.
You're getting hung up on the franchise number. I'm just totaling the amount of guaranteed money Flowers would get if he was a Patriot the next 2 years and using that as a starting point for the guaranteed money on a long-term deal. It's a logical starting point for both sides if the Pats are serious about keeping him. Him being the best option on the market combined with teams that both need him and have boatloads of cash available is probably going to inflate his value. He'll shop around and see what his value his and I believe his value will be around what has been floated in the last week or so. If the Pats' valuation of him is lower, it will be hard to expect him to take less just to stay. I hope he does for selfish reasons, but I will never criticize anyone in the NFL who chases the cash.
FWIW because it's not mainstream media.
As first reported by @SteveB7SFG Tom Brady and #Patriots are close to new deal. Multiple sources tell me Terms 3 years plus option 100 Million total. 50 Million guaranteed ...Tom will be with #Pats for the rest of his playing career. & beyond
As first reported by @SteveB7SFG Tom Brady and #Patriots are close to new deal. Multiple sources tell me Terms 3 years plus option 100 Million total. 50 Million guaranteed ...Tom will be with #Pats for the rest of his playing career. & beyond
Exactly. Being unwilling to take a $17.1M cap charge for 2019 is not the same as being unwilling to give him a contract with a $17.1M AAV. The latter might be true too but it doesn't necessarily follow from the former.
Obviously a ridiculous amount of money for a 41-year old. But you know what, at this point... if this somehow blows up in their face, I don't even care. Brady has earned it and he's given me more enjoyment as a football fan than I ever could possibly have imagined. I don't think it will blow up in their face (i.e., I think he's got plenty of good football left in him), but even if it did...I'm good with it.
You pretty much hand him a blank check and say "how much do you want for yourself, vs letting us have so we can use it to build a team around you?", and live with the answer.
Fully agreed. I am 100% on board with the Pats strategy of not paying for past performance and getting rid of guys a year early. In this case, I don't care at all. If the 2022 season is a disaster and it's Brady's fault so be it.
If the 100 million is included in the 4th year option, it’s probably not a bad deal for the cap. Let’s them extend the bonus to only 12.5/year and maybe Brady was super generous and put like 25-30 of the remaining 50 in the last year. That would average them out to 19-20 million over the cap the next three seasons. It leaves 12.5 dead money in 2022, but whatever, that’ll be like 5% of the cap then.
I'd assume maybe a Papi-esque ambassador type role to maybe fill in for some of the salary he gave up all these years?
The report I saw had $50 million guaranteed but not necessarily as a bonus. As with all contracts in NFL, we need to see the structure. How much of the guarantee is salary and how much is bonus. Patriots might be willing to guarantee salary first couple years but may balk on guaranteeing much in years 3 and 4.
Brady is set to make $15M this year so that $100M probably includes that figure. I'm going to guess that its two additional years plus an option year and so those additional years (including option) would average $28.3M in AAV. Assume for a moment that the additional year salaries are all $25M and they're giving him a $10M bonus to top up his 2019 cash earnings. That would still be a discount.