Patriots With Too High A Salary

IMHO, Belichick manages the cap extremely well. As I look at our players, I do not see many who are being overpaid on an ongoing basis. Of course, some (like Arrington and Amendola) may have been given too high a compensation at the start with too high a bonus. But for now, their current costs seem fine. Let's look at the candidates.

MANKINS is probably one of the top candidates. He is being paid $6.25M of salary.

WILFORK will make the roster and likely play in all the games. This will put him at about $6M for this year. It is not clear that he can perform at that level. However, the risk seems worth taking.

ARRINGTON is a top nickel corner. We are paying him $2M of new money this year.

AMENDOLA is arguably a top slot receiver who is being paid $3M of new money. Obviously, if he does not fully recover from his injury, he is not worth the money.

Perhaps CONNOLLY is being paid too much at $3M, but his ability to start at 3 positions really does make him worth the money. He still could be cut.

SLATER is a bargain at $1.6M for one of the top special teamers in the game.

IMHO, none of the players with salaries of $1M or more have out of line salaries. That is truly impressive!
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i say brady is overpaid....he needs to think of the TEAM more and not just his own Hollywood lifestyle....esp. considering his drop in production last year

james87654 said:

i say brady is overpaid....he needs to think of the TEAM more and not just his own Hollywood lifestyle....esp. considering his drop in production last year

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to be fair, he sold his hollywood home and moved back to boston

chasa said:

to be fair, he sold his hollywood home and moved back to boston

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And someone mentioned that he's only counting 2 million towards the cap this year..

chasa said:

to be fair, he sold his hollywood home and moved back to boston

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i wouldnt be surprised if BB telling him that hes not gonna be the QB just cause his name is Tom Brady having something to do with that....i like brady, and i think you can make a case for him being the GOAT along with Montana, Elway, and Peyton.....unitas, etc was before my time....I admire his charity work, esp. best buddies....but i do like to needle him just to be a contrarian

mgteich said:

IMHO, Belichick manages the cap extremely well. As I look at our players, I do not see many who are being overpaid on an ongoing basis. Of course, some (like Arrington and Amendola) may have been given too high a compensation at the start with too high a bonus. But for now, their current costs seem fine. Let's look at the candidates.

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I think you should do it either by APY or cap hits, not new money paid this season, using a player’s contract structure to make him appear less expensive is not a good assessment of cost. I will go with cap hits for the sake of this discussion.

mgteich said:

MANKINS is probably one of the top candidates. He is being paid $6.25M of salary.

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Mankins has a cap figure of $10.5M, at the time he signed the contract he was arguably the best guard in the NFL so the total value of the contract made sense. Unfortunately, he has been burdened with injuries over the past two seasons, but he enters this season 100% and I expect him to perform at the level he did in early 2011.

mgteich said:

WILFORK will make the roster and likely play in all the games. This will put him at about $6M for this year. It is not clear that he can perform at that level. However, the risk seems worth taking.

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Wilfork was injured last season from preseason on, then he tore his Achilles, the year prior to that he was a first team All-Pro and has been one of the best DTs in the NFL over the past decade. He is not overpaid with a cap hit of $6.6M

mgteich said:

ARRINGTON is a top nickel corner. We are paying him $2M of new money this year.

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Arrington has a cap hit of $3.6M in 2014, for a player that is likely to be the fifth CB that is significantly overpaid. I do not view him as a top CB and his statistic do not support it nor does the tape.

mgteich said:

AMENDOLA is arguably a top slot receiver who is being paid $3M of new money. Obviously, if he does not fully recover from his injury, he is not worth the money.

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Amendola has a cap hit of $4.5M and you may be believe he has the talent to be a top slot receiver but in 5 NFL seasons he has never produced like a top slot receiver, until he does he is overpaid.

mgteich said:

Perhaps CONNOLLY is being paid too much at $3M, but his ability to start at 3 positions really does make him worth the money. He still could be cut.

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We will see if he makes the team. This season’s cap number is high but Connolly is a interior lineman who can start at 3 positions.

mgteich said:

SLATER is a bargain at $1.6M for one of the top special teamers in the game.

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The cap hit is $2.2M, which is a lot for a gunner. He offers value in the locker room and is worth the overall contract. He is not a bargain though, not even close to one, his cap hit is significantly higher than other top ST players are.

mgteich said:

IMHO, none of the players with salaries of $1M or more have out of line salaries. That is truly impressive!

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The majority of our top players are on their rookie contracts still.

Danger Zone said:

And someone mentioned that he's only counting 2 million towards the cap this year..

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I believe you're referring to a post I made a couple of days ago. What I said is that his salary is only $2M for 2014, so that avenue of gaining cap room (converting his salary to a signing bonus) isn't really available this year.

Great post B6. Only thing I slightly disagree with is Mankins being worth an average of $10 million year. He blocked with attitude and mostly sealed his man which is exactly what's asked of a guard. Maybe I'm harassing him here but he did play terrible in 2 super bowls and last year's AFCCG. Actually he struggled with the elite pass-rushers and power pigs. However everybody gets beat and he mostly sealed the play except big games.

IMHO if a guard is payed like that he better dominate and crash his entire side of the D-Line backwards like Carl Nicks, Jarhi Evans, and the rising Kelechi Osemele. And like Greg Robinson appears will do. It's all bout power and moving people,just ask the most dominant guards and they all say moving/driving D-lineman is easy to them.

Larry Allen was awesome and he will tell you why. Powerful O-Lineman have contained athletic explosive edge rushers and they will tell you it's due to their power/shock being able to easily move a lineman or knock a speed rusher off course. Jarhi Evans is great and a bulldozer but the closest I seen to Larry Allen is an injury free Carl Nicks by far. I would pay him like a LT.

When you play a dominant Defense like the Seahawks, you just have to be able to punch them back in the mouth. I like Fleming as our power tackle to move to guard and dominate and Halapio at center to man up NTs. Our future could be Fleming/Halapio/Cannon at guard/center with Solder/Vollmer the bookends. That would be a destructive O-Line. Bring on them dominant defenses because they are getting punched back in the mouth.

You are free to use whatever you wish.

For me, I will use new money because that it is the decision the team must make at any given time. Let us use Mankins as an example. What matters is whether he is worth $6.5M of new money (higher next year). His AAV is totally irrelevant. His cap hit is of little interest unless we have current cap issues, in which case a restructure would be in order.

One often gets misleading results by looking at the current year cap hit or AAV, whether considering a decision of whether to sign a player or whether we are considering keeping a player. What matters is current and future money and services.

We will continue to disagree on this matter.

Brady6 said:

I think you should do it either by APY or cap hits, not new money paid this season, using a player’s contract structure to make him appear less expensive is not a good assessment of cost. I will go with cap hits for the sake of this discussion.

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I think its important to consider the entire cap hit. That's what signing and having that player counts against your cap and responsible for your inability to pay other needed talent. IMO Mankins was never worth being the highest paid guard. Arrington and Amendola could easily be replaced with mid round draft picks as well as Conolly. Their salary could be used on AN impact player. I think Arrington/Amendola are very expendable limited players. I would take Bennett or Peppers or a speedy impact corner that was available in FA this year over any 2 of them.

This is one of those threads that is well timed and provides a nice, simple, clear viewpoint. Sure, there are other ways to look at player expense. But this post is about offering one particular view of expense, and should be responded to in that context.

Arrington is #1, for me, followed by Connolly. I fear that Wilfork will belong on this list, although I hope to be proven wrong. Wendell definitely belongs, and in a vacuum Mankins probably would, although maybe not in practice since he has extra value as the rock of continuity for the rest of the OL.

Amendola is overpaid both based on his past production and what we can reasonably expect him to produce this year. It's quite possible that he'll have a career year and shed the label, but I'm not betting on it. Hoomanawanui maybe, but he's not making enough for me to care too much (same with Tavon Wilson).

Other than that, I don't think anyone's too significantly overpaid. Unless you want to argue that, since Patrick Chung is worthless, his $1M cap his is exactly $1M too much, but I don't think that's really in the spirit of this thread.

FWIW, I think that evaluating players based entirely on their new money is a terrible way of deciding whether or not they're overpaid. It's good for determining whether to keep up cut them, since all of the paid money is a sunk cost, but that's a separate question. Cap hit is the reasonable figure to peg their performance against when evaluating who's underpaid and overpaid.

If you're going to complain about Mankins play, then who are you going to replace at that price that will play better...not many that would hit the free market that would be a good replacement.

mgteich said:

IMHO, Belichick manages the cap extremely well. As I look at our players, I do not see many who are being overpaid on an ongoing basis. Of course, some (like Arrington and Amendola) may have been given too high a compensation at the start with too high a bonus. But for now, their current costs seem fine. Let's look at the candidates.

MANKINS is probably one of the top candidates. He is being paid $6.25M of salary.

WILFORK will make the roster and likely play in all the games. This will put him at about $6M for this year. It is not clear that he can perform at that level. However, the risk seems worth taking.

ARRINGTON is a top nickel corner. We are paying him $2M of new money this year.

AMENDOLA is arguably a top slot receiver who is being paid $3M of new money. Obviously, if he does not fully recover from his injury, he is not worth the money.

Perhaps CONNOLLY is being paid too much at $3M, but his ability to start at 3 positions really does make him worth the money. He still could be cut.

SLATER is a bargain at $1.6M for one of the top special teamers in the game.

IMHO, none of the players with salaries of $1M or more have out of line salaries. That is truly impressive!
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Mankins- probably a little overpaid at this point but he is the leader of the line and BB likes his toughness

Wilfork- depends on which Vince we get....could go either way

Arrington- maybe slightly

Amendola- definitely, unless he stays healthy and becomes what josh imagined


I tend to agree with you, for the most part...................just my opinion

Tie between Arrington and Amendola, really poor contracts/decisions by our FO. Nobody is infallible, it happens. Other than that we have done a great job IMO signing according to value (and sometimes even below player value), so hard to say anymore that are overpaid.

Brady6 said:

I think you should do it either by APY or cap hits, not new money paid this season, using a player’s contract structure to make him appear less expensive is not a good assessment of cost. I will go with cap hits for the sake of this discussion.


The cap hit is $2.2M, which is a lot for a gunner. He offers value in the locker room and is worth the overall contract. He is not a bargain though, not even close to one, his cap hit is significantly higher than other top ST players are.

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Slater is not JUST a gunner. That is your erroneous statement. Slater plays on ALL 6 of the special teams units. Yes, he is out there on the Field goal unit and the Field goal against units. He's usually on the end to come in and try for the block, though sometimes he lines up as the next man in.. You acting like he does so little to help this team just doesn't fly. Saying that he's not a bargain also doesn't fly. Claiming that his cap hit is "significantly higher" than other special teams players is only factual if you talk just about gunners. Kickers and Punters are special teams only players and I pointed out 18 players who have cap hit's higher than Slater's. You chose to arbitrarily dismiss that despite the fact that they see as much time on the field as Slater does.

If B6 thinks Slater is only a gunner, B6 is overpaid even though he posts here for free.

DaBruinz said:

Slater is not JUST a gunner. That is your erroneous statement. Slater plays on ALL 6 of the special teams units. Yes, he is out there on the Field goal unit and the Field goal against units. He's usually on the end to come in and try for the block, though sometimes he lines up as the next man in.. You acting like he does so little to help this team just doesn't fly. Saying that he's not a bargain also doesn't fly. Claiming that his cap hit is "significantly higher" than other special teams players is only factual if you talk just about gunners. Kickers and Punters are special teams only players and I pointed out 18 players who have cap hit's higher than Slater's. You chose to arbitrarily dismiss that despite the fact that they see as much time on the field as Slater does.

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He does not play all 6 units, he plays 4. He does not play on field goal protection or field goal block.

I am not going to compare Slater to a kicker or punter, you suggesting that we should is foolish.

Two comments:

1) Brady is 18th among all players in salary cap hit, and 11th among quarterbacks for 2014. He's a bargain, and a genuinely committed teammate. His 2013 production had way more to do with his available play makers, and very little to do with his performance.

2) Arrington at $3.65 million is the going rate for a cornerback with his skill set. He's not even in the top 25 cornerbacks: http://www.spotrac.com/rankings/nfl/cap-hit/cornerback/limit-25/

He's going to be tested a lot this year with Darrelle Revis on one side and Dennard/Browner on the other side. IMHO, Arrington's contract makes total sense. The Patriots need a veteran specialist at the position that will probably see more targets than any other in 2014. That is a small price to pay for a corner who understands how to disrupt and re-direct slot receivers.

Ryan Wendell is overpaid simply because the Patriots are currently paying him.