PatsFans.com Article

Patriots Offseason Has Potential to Wow
By: Christine Roy

After yet another heartbreaking loss in the Super Bowl, Bill Belichick has a fresh offseason in front of him. According to the USA Today, an unbelievable 600 free agents could hit the market when their contracts expire on March 31. Compared to the hurried offseason of last year, this one has potential.

Instead of hurrying up to make moves, owners and coaches are able to take a more detailed look at the available players. Preseason planning can get underway sooner and the all important, quarterback/receiver relationships can being to develop. It’s a chemistry thing and this offseason should be full of it.....

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Ron Sellers

I am going to respectfully disagree with this assessment. The Patriots pass rush in 2011 was light years ahead of where it had been the previous three years; you can't lump the '11 pass rush in with the pass rush of those other teams. If you had to pick only one area on this team that lagged behind and needed to be upgraded then that would without a doubt be pass coverage, not the pass rush. In fact it was the pass rush that helped hide the glaring deficiencies of the secondary, helped along with schemes by the coaching staff.

Granted the pass rush cannot be ignored this off-season since Anderson and Carter are free agents. Plus, there are other free agents that would be huge upgrades - whether they big money, big name players like Mario Williams or less costly options - but in my opinion the Pats defensive line did a much better job than the secondary did this year.

patsfaninpa

Can't argue that. Based on 2011 performance. But, the secondary is getting players back. Patrick Chung shouldn't miss half the season. Ras-I Dowling will be back. I feel Devin McCourty will be better than he showed in 2011. All we need is a FS imo and some depth.

The DL is losing their two best pass rushers. Warren and Ellis aren't long term answers. We need two 2-gap de's. And, one or two olb's. One if we keep Anderson.

Deus Irae

I think the cap number is going to be important, because players haven't yet adapted to the slowing of the growth.

At $101 million, with a cap of $125 million, and the $6 million carryover, the Patriots would effectively have a cap of $131 million, giving them $30 million to spend. At that point, the team should be able to re-sign anyone it wants (financially speaking), plus sign the draftees, plus sign a WR and S in free agency.

Heck, they'd even have another $2 million they could borrow from next year's cap if they chose to use it.

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Joker

I read that the Pats have 6 million of cap space and the Jets have 8.8 million...once again proving how far greater the Jets are than the Patriots...of course, the post comes from Sewerhole Insider and its "cap expert" guy...so,I mean, they are so screwy over there it's probably utter garbage...BUT...does anyone have THE definitive numbers from an impeccable source???

borg

Doesn't the cap pop up to approx. $160 mill in a couple years....once the new TV money kicks in. If this true, it would be in the Pats best interests to get the Gronk done early before the spicket opens. Of course his agent will recommend patience...Boras style

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ATippett56

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Lamanai

Those figures do not include unused 2011 cap space. The amount of Pats and Jets unused cap space are the $6 million and 8 million referenced earlier. So the Pats actually have a bit more, say about $30 million. That sounds like a lot, but about half of it gets taken up by Welker (franchised?) and the draftees.

I'd characterize the Pats as being in comfortable cap shape, but not exactly rolling in it.

I heard something interesting the other day. Are there really going to be about 600 free agents looking for work? Adding in the 250 or so draftees and a plethora of UDFA players is gonna be close to 1,000 players in a mad scramble for not really that much cap money. Some teams will not use it all. If so, there may be a lot of decent players that have not yet realized that they have played their last NFL game.

Wilfork#75

Then you add in cuts to Chad Johnson-OchoCinco, Mike Wright, Josh Barrett and the bottom of the roster guys that won't make the final 53, its closer to $40mil in cap space. Minus $5-6 for draft picks and you still have plenty of room to re-sign Welker, Sign Lloyd, make a spash with Mario Williams and maybe even take a look at guys like Kendall Langford and Adrian Wilson (if he gets cut). And with the cap expected to increase in 2014 with the new TV deal, none of these contracts, even a big one to Super Mario would handcuff the team long term.

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102 Pat

I expect there to be a moment or two when I read about a Pats signing this off-season and have a "OMG" moment.

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This offseason, it's almost like Belichick is saying, "I'm never going to let that happen again."

Mike Reiss 7/19/12