Tracking Pats Cap Space

Saints Rest

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View: https://twitter.com/patscap/status/1372507232487751682

7:15AM update - My Patriots salary cap space number after Cannon trade = $26,079,449. Accounts for Mills, Wise, Agholor, Judon, Godchaux, Smith, Bourne, Henry, Anderson, the Davises & Van Noy Does not account for Brown, Bethel, and Karras Also accounts for Allen/Lee releases

And although he didn't specifically say it, he has been steadfast in including the $3Million he expects allocated for the current draft picks. I imagine that that number would change if the Pats do a lot of draft day trades.

He also adds elsewhere that the current cap space only uses the Top-51 rule which only lasts until the beginning of the season at which time they need to account for players and 52 + 53, practice squad, and IR.
 

tims4wins

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Chung's retirement should create space - I think.

Edit - actually it may be the same as a cut, which would reduce cap space
 

Mystic Merlin

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Chung's retirement should create space - I think.
If they carry him on the roster until June 2nd, his retirement would save them about 1.85M in cap space in 2021 by pushing half the accelerates bonus money into 2022. Or they could eat some net dead money (983K) on the cap this year by treating the retirement as pre-June 1.
 

Mugsy's Jock

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@DJnVa already answered me on this above, but let me put it another way...

With Chung now not playing in 2021, and JCJ potentially leaving on the 2nd round tender or as trade bait, keeping Gilmore becomes more important. It's also to be expected he won't come back unless his contract is improved.

You expect he'd want a 4+ year extension, but that doesn't seem to be good business for the Pats.

Would he/the Pats consider any of the following, to take advantage of what's probably still pretty significant change rattling around in the 2021 piggybank:
1.) Just giving him a $4M bonus (or something) in 2021, all hitting in 2021, to play in 2021?
2.) Giving him a one-year extension into 2022 for $20M, with the Pats determining how much of that to prepay in 2021 using money that's leftover.
3.) Giving him a two-year extension into 2023 for $38M, with the Pats determining how much of that to prepay in 2021 using money that's leftover.

Idea would be to get money out the door this year. If Deshaun Watson were really on the table, of course, all bets would be off.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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He also adds elsewhere that the current cap space only uses the Top-51 rule which only lasts until the beginning of the season at which time they need to account for players and 52 + 53, practice squad, and IR.
One of the things that it took me a while -- too long -- to realize about Miguel is that he's not that interested in playing the "what does it all mean" game. He gives you the numbers, shows his work, and does not like to speculate at all. He'll run various scenarios and talk about what moves can take up more cap space. But his general thought is that shit can happen and until it does he doesn't know what he doesn't know. He's been answering a few more "do we have the money [to make a particular move]" questions lately because I suppose as his subscribers grow the sophistication level of the subscriber base goes down a bit. But you get the sense he doesn't like them.

But you'll rarely see him post things like: "While my number is $20 million that doesn't mean what you think it means because they structured the latest deal to include significant easy to earn NLTBE bonuses so they've tacked on a hidden cap charge to next year." He may educate on the difference between NLTBE and LTBE but he generally does not spend much time on trying to convey what it all means in any given year.

In the last couple of years though, it seems like has made much more of an effort to depart from this principle to explain the significance of the rule of 51 and the cost of the draft. I think he had a few occasions where he has to answer so many questions because readers don't really understand his approach that he's had to cover these in more detail. I'm sure that every year when the roster cut down occurs and the rule of 51 goes away and all the money gets tacked on, he continually has to deal with "where'd our space go" questions.
 

Saints Rest

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One of the things that it took me a while -- too long -- to realize about Miguel is that he's not that interested in playing the "what does it all mean" game. He gives you the numbers, shows his work, and does not like to speculate at all. He'll run various scenarios and talk about what moves can take up more cap space. But his general thought is that shit can happen and until it does he doesn't know what he doesn't know. He's been answering a few more "do we have the money [to make a particular move]" questions lately because I suppose as his subscribers grow the sophistication level of the subscriber base goes down a bit. But you get the sense he doesn't like them.

But you'll rarely see him post things like: "While my number is $20 million that doesn't mean what you think it means because they structured the latest deal to include significant easy to earn NLTBE bonuses so they've tacked on a hidden cap charge to next year." He may educate on the difference between NLTBE and LTBE but he generally does not spend much time on trying to convey what it all means in any given year.

In the last couple of years though, it seems like has made much more of an effort to depart from this principle to explain the significance of the rule of 51 and the cost of the draft. I think he had a few occasions where he has to answer so many questions because readers don't really understand his approach that he's had to cover these in more detail. I'm sure that every year when the roster cut down occurs and the rule of 51 goes away and all the money gets tacked on, he continually has to deal with "where'd our space go" questions.
One of the best parts of a subscription to BSJ was Miguel's elaborate columns explaining "what does it all mean" and speculation of how things might play out in the future.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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One of the best parts of a subscription to BSJ was Miguel's elaborate columns explaining "what does it all mean" and speculation of how things might play out in the future.
Interesting. I never subscribed. Even when I've heard him on podcasts he doesn't seem like he ever wants to go there and is much more focused on the mechanics, timing and rules of the cap.
 

Saints Rest

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Yeah, they were great explanations. Lots of Q&A. I think he's been off the site's staff since 2019.

Here's an example. I know it's not our usual procedure to paste whole articles, but it's over 18 months old.

Most of the questions I recently received on Twitter have been about the salary cap consequences for trading for a player.

Background: When a team trades for a player, it becomes responsible for paying the player’s remaining salary and remaining bonuses if there are any. The player’s signing bonus proration remains with his old team. Any incentives are re-evaluated. A trade this week means becoming responsible for paying the acquired player’s salary for 13 weeks. A trade next week means becoming responsible for paying the acquired player’s salary for 12 weeks. The trade deadline is 4 p.m., Tuesday, October 29. Please also note that the players are paid for 17 weeks during the season since they are paid during their bye week.

In order for the Patriots to acquire a player whose new cap number would be higher than the Patriots current cap space number of $2,881,550 — say, Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs — one of four things or a combination of the four would have to happen:

1.) Lower a current Patriot player’s cap number by converting most of his remaining salary into a signing bonus like they did earlier this year with Stephon Gilmore. The cap savings column is also the amount of signing bonus proration that will be pushed into the future. For example, Donta Hightower’s 2020 cap number would increase by $2,320,882 to $14,266,195.

[TH]Player[/TH] [TH]Signed Through[/TH] [TH]Current Salary[/TH] [TH]Earned Salary[/TH] [TH]Salary for the last 13 weeks[/TH] [TH]New Total Salary[/TH] [TH]Signing Bonus[/TH] [TH]sb proration[/TH] [TH]Cap Savings[/TH]
Dont'a Hightower 2020 7,000,000 1,647,059 711,176 2,358,235 4,641,765 2,320,882 2,320,882
Shaq Mason 2023 4,000,000 941,176 615,588 1,556,765 2,443,235 488,647 1,954,588
Michael Bennett 2020 3,000,000 705,882 787,647 1,493,529 1,506,471 753,235 753,235
Duron Harmon 2020 2,500,000 588,235 711,176 1,299,412 1,200,588 600,294 600,294
James White 2020 2,500,000 588,235 615,588 1,203,824 1,296,176 648,088 648,088
Lawrence Guy 2020 2,400,000 564,706 711,176 1,275,882 1,124,118 562,059 562,059
Jason McCourty 2020 2,000,000 470,588 787,647 1,258,235 741,765 370,882 370,882
Tom Brady 2021 1,750,000 411,765 787,647 1,199,412 550,588 183,529 367,059
Rex Burkhead 2020 1,750,000 411,765 711,176 1,122,941 627,059 313,529 313,529

2.) Extend a player with a large salary lowering his salary to the minimum as part of the extension. Kyle Van Noymakes the most sense for this scenario.

Here’s my projection of a Kyle Van Noy extension.



If the Patriots did this, it would free up $1.35 million of cap space for this season.

Another possible way to create cap space would be to give Devin McCourty an extension that lowers his salary to the minimum and contained voidable years.

  • $4,936,941 in cap space would be created if the extension included four voidable years.
  • $4,628,382 with three voidable years.
  • $4,114,118 with two voidable years.
  • $3,085,588 with one voidable year.
3.) The player’s old team could, before the trade, pay the player a signing bonus while lowering his 2019 salary. Doing so would lower his cap number for the Patriots.

Let’s use Diggs as an example.

The Patriots could ask the Vikings to give Diggs a signing bonus before the trade. In exchange for receiving the same signing bonus, Diggs would agree to lower his 2019 salary.

Let’s say the Vikings were to give him this week a $6,190,294 signing bonus Diggs’ salary with the Patriots for the last 13 weeks of the season would then be $615,588. See the trades for Eugene Monroe and Levi Brown for precedents.

4.) Include a current Patriot in the trade to offset partially the incoming cap hit.

[TH]Player[/TH] [TH]Yearly Salary[/TH] [TH]13 Weeks Salary[/TH] [TH]12 Weeks Salary[/TH]
Devin McCourty 9,000,000 6,882,353 6,352,941
Dont'a Hightower 7,000,000 5,352,941 4,941,176
Kyle Van Noy 4,250,000 3,250,000 3,000,000
Michael Bennett 3,000,000 2,294,118 2,117,647
Duron Harmon 2,500,000 1,911,765 1,764,706
James White 2,500,000 1,911,765 1,764,706
Lawrence Guy 2,400,000 1,835,294 1,694,118
Danny Shelton 2,030,955 1,553,083 1,433,615
Elandon Roberts 2,025,000 1,548,529 1,429,412
Josh Gordon 2,025,000 1,548,529 1,429,412
Jason McCourty 2,000,000 1,529,412 1,411,765
Nate Ebner 2,000,000 1,529,412 1,411,765
Joe Thuney 1,995,000 1,525,588 1,408,235
Rex Burkhead 1,750,000 1,338,235 1,235,294
Matthew Slater 1,600,000 1,223,529 1,129,412
Phillip Dorsett 1,500,000 1,147,059 1,058,824
Ben Watson 1,108,824 847,924 782,699
Patrick Chung 1,100,000 841,176 776,471
Brandon Bolden 1,000,000 764,706 705,882
Julian Edelman 1,000,000 764,706 705,882
Marcus Cannon 1,000,000 764,706 705,882
Stephon Gilmore 1,000,000 764,706 705,882

For example, let’s say that the Patriots wish to Diggs for Peterson whose 2019 salary is $8.9 million. One way to do so would be to include Devin McCourty‘s $9-million salary and $400,000 in 46-man active roster bonuses in the trade.

Please note that since there are a good number of teams with more cap space than the Patriots, the Vikings would probably prefer to trade Diggs without first paying him a signing bonus.

The below table shows the cap hits of thirteen possible trade targets.

[TH]Player[/TH] [TH]2019 Cash[/TH] [TH]This Week's Cap Hit[/TH] [TH]Next Week's Cap Hit[/TH]
A.J. Green 11,976,000 9,158,118 8,453,647
Larry Fitzgerald 11,000,000 8,411,765 7,764,706
Trent Williams 10,850,000 8,297,059 7,658,824
Emmanuel Sanders 10,150,000 7,761,765 7,164,706
Stefon Diggs 8,900,000 6,805,882 6,282,353
Jordan Reed 7,858,500 6,053,559 5,586,699
Cameron Brate 7,000,000 5,352,941 4,941,176
Mohammed Sanu 6,250,000 4,588,235 4,235,294
Vernon Davis 4,856,250 3,750,368 3,458,272
Danny Amendola 4,437,500 3,437,500 3,171,875
Jalen Ramsey 3,634,227 2,779,115 2,565,337
Devante Parker 3,500,000 2,895,221 2,658,088
Kyle Rudolph 1,750,000 1,525,735 1,407,169
Alex Erickson 1,475,000 1,145,588 1,056,985
OJ Howard 1,473,624 1,126,889 1,040,205
Tyler Eifert 1,000,000 764,706 705,882
Jason Sanders 570,000 435,882 402,353

Tyler Eifert and Jason Sanders all can be easily acquired by the Patriots without any transactions.

Alex Erickson and Kyle Rudolph could be acquired and the Patriots could wait until later this season to create the cap space needed to operate for the rest of the regular season. That way, the Patriots would be pushing a smaller amount of signing bonus into the future.

Trading for A.J. Green, Larry Fitzgerald, Emmanuel Sanders, Diggs, Jordan Reed, Cameron Brate, Mohammed Sanu, Vernon Davis, Danny Amendola, Jalen Ramsey, Trent Williams or Kyle Rudolph would require one or more of the previously mentioned moves.

I currently have the Patriots with around $2.8 million in cap space. That is probably more than enough to account for the following current cap responsibilities:

1. The signing of Jordan Richards to the 53-man roster. If signed to a Minimum Salary Benefit deal his minimum cap number is $493,235

2. The signing of Kelvin McKnight to the practice squad. His minimum cap number is $104,000 (thirteen weeks times $8,000).

3. Earned NLTBE (Not Likely to Be Earned) 46-man active roster bonuses. These bonuses are the only NTLBE incentives that hit the current year’s cap when earned. As you can see below, the Patriots could lose $875,000 in cap space if the 7 players are active for every game the rest of the year. To illustrate this, since Julian Edelman was not active for any game in 2017, in 2018 the Patriots lost $31,250 in cap space every Tuesday on the NFLPA public salary cap page.

[TH]Totals[/TH] [TH]875,000[/TH] [TH]Player[/TH] [TH]NLTBE 46-man roster bonus amount[/TH]
Rex Burkhead 250,000
Marcus Cannon 187,500
Shaq Mason 125,000
Julian Edelman 125,000
John Simon 109,375
Patrick Chung 50,000
Danny Shelton 28,125

4. The Patriots are certain to place more players on injured reserve before the end of the regular season. Replacing those players will take up cap space. For example, let us presume the Patriots place another player on IR sometime this week and they then fill his spot on the 53-man roster with a rookie. That rookie will have a cap number of $378,529 as it is very likely that his yearly salary will be the minimum of $495,000.

5.) If the Patriots choose to extend a player who is making the minimum salary (Adam Butler, Ted Karras), the extension can only increase that player’s 2019 cap number, since his prorated signing bonus will now be part of his 2019 cap number.

6.) If Antonio Brown files a grievance about his unpaid 2019 salary amount of $750,000 40 percent of that ($300,000) will then be subtracted from the Patriots salary cap. If the Pats win the grievance, they will receive a $300,000 credit on their 2020 salary cap.

SUMMARY

The Patriots have enough cap space for the current roster but not enough if the Patriots acquire a player with a large 2019 cash number. That would require a lot of hoop-jumping, and I have a hard time seeing them doing that.

For example, if the Patriots did want to trade for Diggs, the following would have to be done to fit his $6,282,353 under the cap next week (I’m not including a player swap has never done a cap swap like that):

  • Extend Devin McCourty by one year (Cap space created: $3,085,588)
  • Extend Van Noy (Cap space created: $1,350,000)
  • Break-glass option: Convert Hightower’s salary (Cap space created: $2,320,882)
TOTAL: $6,756,440

Answering some logical follow-up questions:

Question from Twitter follower Pats POV (McGarvin): Good evening @patscap I was wondering if you knew the rules regarding acquiring a player in the final year of their deal via a trade whose base salary exceeds the acquiring team’s cap before an extension. Ex: Team has $7M in cap and player’s base salary is $8.7M would the team be allowed to acquire the said player if an extension was reached alongside the trade? If an extension is reached before the trade is formally announced that reduces player’s cap hit to $3M is it allowed? Or would the player’s salary have to already be under the cap before the trade?

Answer: The team would have to first create cap space. As an example, in 2007, Tom Brady converted salary into a signing bonus in order to make room for Randy Moss. Let’s continue to use Diggs as an example. The Patriots could create more cap space on the 3rd and then trade for him on the 4th of October. On the 5th they could then restructure his deal.

Question: Do the Patriots have to place an injured player on Injured Reserve right away?

Answer: No, they could leave him on the 53-man roster and not have him active. This way they do not have to pay his replacement.

Question: How much cap space is Antonio Brown taking up?

Answer: Five million. It consists of:
$4,500,000 – signing bonus proration of his $9,000,000 signing bonus
$250,000 – signing bonus proration of his $500,000 46-man roster bonuses. Because Brown’s deal was signed after the start of the regular season, his roster bonuses were treated like a signing bonus.
$125,000 – two weeks salary
$125,000 – termination pay

Question: Can the Patriots trade a player on Injured Reserve to create cap space?

Answer: Yes, they can. Ever since 2018 the trading of players on IR is allowed.

Question: Can the Patriots restructure the player’s contract after trading for him?

Answer: Yes, they can.

From Twitter follower Chewy: Sorry if you already answered this. If Gronk unretires (which I doubt), what would the contract and cap situation be? Thx! Love your acct!

Answer: If Rob Gronkowski decides to un-retire during the regular season, his cap number would be $9 million divided by 17 times the number of weeks remaining in the season plus $46,875 times the remaining number of games. As Bedard illustrated in here, the deadline to unretire is Week 13.

Week 5 – $7,444,853
Week 6 – $6,868,566
Week 7 – $6,292,279
Week 8 – $5,715,993
Week 9 – $5,139,706
Week 10 – $4,610,294
Week 11 – $4,034,007
Week 12 – $3,457,721
Week 13 – $2,881,434

Question: What is your current Patriots 2019 salary cap space number?

Answer:

Active Contracts 74
Projected League Cap 188,200,000
Plus Prior Year Carryover 3,173,423
Plus Adjustment 5,640,675
Equals Adjusted Cap Number 197,014,098
Minus Cap Commitment 155,345,287
Minus Dead Money 21,981,663
Minus Medical 14,269,896
Minus Practice Squad 2,096,059
Equals Estimated Cap Space 3,321,193


The 75 players include 16 of 22 SB LIII starters, 29 of 53 SB LIII active players, and 3 of 13 players who were on IR/NFI.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Wow -- I had no idea it was really all that comprehensive. I really missed out. That's exactly my cup of tea.
 

Cellar-Door

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I wonder why the Brown deal has been under such wraps compared to others...
I would guess that they are holding off on it until they know what else they've done. So they have a general agreement, but the exact details might get tweaked depending what else we do.
 

BaseballJones

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The Brown deal will cut into the cap space for sure but it’s incredible that they’ve gotten all this done and STILL have maybe something like $10-12 million in actual cap space left.
 

DJnVa

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I think Miguel said the other day they usually carry about $6-$8M of cap space into the season, so there's still a little bit there.
 

E5 Yaz

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Mystic Merlin

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Considering how rare it is for a good team to be at the top of the cap space list that's not surprising.
Yep, and bad teams tend to be bad because they tend to make bad decisions, so they’re more likely to use their ample cap space in unintelligent ways.

If the Pats had drafted or traded for guys like Henry and Judon and kept them on extensions approximating their current contract values, it would be a non issue. The Pats weren’t gonna go into 2021 with like a 140-150M payroll in cash or cap dollars, too many holes and too many available players who fit those holes.
 

E5 Yaz

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Considering how rare it is for a good team to be at the top of the cap space list that's not surprising.
Yep, and bad teams tend to be bad because they tend to make bad decisions, so they’re more likely to use their ample cap space in unintelligent ways.
No, not always ...

  • fter winning 10 games in 2012, the Vikings spent over $100M in free agency in 2013, signing 5 players on day one including FB Jerome Felton, LB Erin Henderson, RT Phillip Loadholt, C Joe Berger and SS Jamarca Sanford. They added QB Matt Cassel and WR Greg Jennings in short order, and proceeded to win only 5 games in 2013 and fired their head coach.
  • After winning 10 games in 2014, the Eagles spent over $122M in free agency in 2015, bringing in big name, big contract players from around the NFL including CB Byron Maxwell, RB DeMarco Murray, RB Ryan Mathews and FS Walter Thurmond. As we know, the Eagles struggled tremendously, winning just 7 games last year. Like the Vikings above, this catastrophe led to firing their head coach, and in 2016, the futures market predicts another losing season.
  • After winning 9 games for the second straight season in 2015, the Texans spent $140M in free agency in 2016, highlighted by day 1 signings of QB Brock Osweiler and RB Lamar Miller to beef up their offense. Despite playing in the NFL’s easiest division and facing the 2nd easiest schedule of opposing defenses in the NFL, the Texans offenses was one of the worst in the NFL. Playing in such a poor division against an easy schedule, they were able to make the playoffs but stood no real shot against good offenses, and were blown out by the Patriots. Now the Texans find themselves with Osweiler hitting the cap for $19M in 2017 more than Ben Roethlisberger and Russell Wilson, and equal to Drew Brees.
https://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/analysis/nfl-free-agency-overspending-begets-losing/
 

The Mort Report

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Yep, and bad teams tend to be bad because they tend to make bad decisions, so they’re more likely to use their ample cap space in unintelligent ways.

If the Pats had drafted or traded for guys like Henry and Judon and kept them on extensions approximating their current contract values, it would be a non issue. The Pats weren’t gonna go into 2021 with like a 140-150M payroll in cash or cap dollars, too many holes and too many available players who fit those holes.
It's funny reading some of the articles they are writing now. With each deal as it was announced the initial reaction to almost all of the deals was positive. Now suddenly I'm seeing articles about how they actually didn't land any stars, signed the wrong players, etc. Every couple years a team that's not run well(I believe the last was Cleveland) spends a ton on a couple really high priced players at the ends of their primes and suddenly they are the media darlings and everyone's sleeper pick for the SB. Pats just don't fit that narrative, even though if they do turn it around, they'll be the first, and also the most likely to succeed
 

JM3

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No, not always ...

  • fter winning 10 games in 2012, the Vikings spent over $100M in free agency in 2013, signing 5 players on day one including FB Jerome Felton, LB Erin Henderson, RT Phillip Loadholt, C Joe Berger and SS Jamarca Sanford. They added QB Matt Cassel and WR Greg Jennings in short order, and proceeded to win only 5 games in 2013 and fired their head coach.
  • After winning 10 games in 2014, the Eagles spent over $122M in free agency in 2015, bringing in big name, big contract players from around the NFL including CB Byron Maxwell, RB DeMarco Murray, RB Ryan Mathews and FS Walter Thurmond. As we know, the Eagles struggled tremendously, winning just 7 games last year. Like the Vikings above, this catastrophe led to firing their head coach, and in 2016, the futures market predicts another losing season.
  • After winning 9 games for the second straight season in 2015, the Texans spent $140M in free agency in 2016, highlighted by day 1 signings of QB Brock Osweiler and RB Lamar Miller to beef up their offense. Despite playing in the NFL’s easiest division and facing the 2nd easiest schedule of opposing defenses in the NFL, the Texans offenses was one of the worst in the NFL. Playing in such a poor division against an easy schedule, they were able to make the playoffs but stood no real shot against good offenses, and were blown out by the Patriots. Now the Texans find themselves with Osweiler hitting the cap for $19M in 2017 more than Ben Roethlisberger and Russell Wilson, and equal to Drew Brees.
https://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/analysis/nfl-free-agency-overspending-begets-losing/
I expect better from Sharp...

The 2012 Vikings were an 8.8 pythag wins team with Christian Ponder as their QB & APs 2k season.

Literally every one of those d1 signings was overpaying their own free agents to come back. Matt Cassel is Matt Cassel & Greg Jennings was ok, but was 30, coming off an injury-plagued season & was past his prime.

The Dream Team Eagles is a decent shout out, but who knew paying tons of $ to a couple RBs wasn't super sharp GMing?

& lol Osweiler.

None of that really seems comparable or instructive regarding what the Patriots are doing. They are in a unique situation due to all the opt outs last season & the huge amount of dead cap they were carrying last year.

Assuming Sharp's using this to say what the Patriots did was foolish. I know he published his historical free agency findings prior to this free agency period. If he's just giving random anecdotes of bad decision-making, that's fine & he can carry on.
 

bigq

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After winning 9 games for the second straight season in 2015, the Texans spent $140M in free agency in 2016, highlighted by day 1 signings of QB Brock Osweiler
This reinforces @Mystic Merlin ’s point that they’re more likely to use their ample cap space in unintelligent ways.
 

JM3

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Texans are 9-7 with prime Brian Hoyer.

Spend all their $ on Brock Osweiler & finish...9-7.

Yeah, they were a fundamentally worse team with a worse offense, but Osweiler.
 

bigq

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Except that the Texas weren't a "bad" team the season before they spent ... they were 9-7
I understand where you are coming from but that 2015 Texans team was bad despite their 9-7 record.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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I think Miguel said the other day they usually carry about $6-$8M of cap space into the season, so there's still a little bit there.
I may be wrong but for what it's worth I think that's the number he usually gives for what they like to have after the draft and after the rule of 51 goes away. He has speculated they need about $3 million for the draft and the 52 and 53 player will be about 1.2 million at least. So to the start the season at 6-8 million would require them to have 10 to 12 million before the draft., or to make a cost saving move.