WOW less than $3000 in cap space!

Checked with multiple sources. Patriots did not reach an injury settlement with Kevin Hughes.

crazy to think they are carrying so little emergancy money into the season, i hope they work out some sort of long term money saving move

captain stone said:

And for the love of Ganja Almighty, get rid of Alan Branch immediately.

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Poor Alan

Imagine if he stumbles across some of your comments one day.

Wheelman said:

No way! Jamie Collins man!

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I think you're misreading his comment. He's saying that if you had to put a gun to his head and force him to chose which guy to let go, he'd choose Chandler Jones.

Depending on your point of view, most think that Jones may be the easiest to replace, and/or that HT and Collins are simply too valuable to try and walk away from.

ctpatsfan77 said:

He's already signed for 2016, so they have to trade him to get out of his 2016 $. After this year's trade deadline, at the next chance the Pats have to trade him, his 2016 salary will be fully guaranteed.

[Please note: I am not recommending the Pats trade Jones this year.]

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So just to simplify for dummies like me--we'd have to trade Chandler Jones by the end of October (or whenever the trade deadline is) in order to get out of that 7.8m dollars in guaranteed money for 2016?

In other words, they couldn't wait until the spring to make that decision? There's nothing they'd be able to recoup in terms of a new deal he'd sign with his new team, or anything like that?

If that's the case, we may as well embrace the fact that Chandler Jones will at least be here through the end of the 2016 season, and that the only real downside to that is that we have to accept the 5th yr option hit at 7.8m for 2016.

That at least allows another 2 yrs for a promising young player. The only real question would be whether or not they'd pay him top dollar on an extension, and at this current moment in time my answer would have to be "no." As we know, Jones can make that decision much harder in the next season or two.

************, our starting center is dealing with some serious lingering concussion issues, one of our two starting guards retired, and people are talking about how it might be a good idea to trade Solder or Vollmer? Yeah I'm sure that would really end well.

VectorPrime said:

************, our starting center is dealing with some serious lingering concussion issues, one of our two starting guards retired, and people are talking about how it might be a good idea to trade Solder or Vollmer? Yeah I'm sure that would really end well.

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Yes, I agree.

I've thought that an extension for Solder would have been top priority going into FA this past spring, but I was wrong. I still think locking him up would be a much better choice vs. letting him go. Perhaps there is some concern due to his health issue from last summer?

Ivan said:

Miguel does a brilliant job of keeping everyone up to date on the cap but I have to say that I'm not the least bit worried about any of this. The Patriots are generally conservative in their approach to the cap and they felt confident enough to go ahead and pay Gronk in advance and use that cap space now which indicates to me that they have plans to create whatever space they need to get through the season and any earned bonuses they incur during it. There's a lot going on right now but I would guess they have new deals and restructures in the works and will create more than enough space to get through the season and have good flexibility when next off season rolls around.

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I said in another thread to expect a big-move cap-wise.

Recommend reading

http://www.patsfans.com/salary-cap/2015/09/07/where-did-the-…s-cap-space-go/ ‎

ctpatsfan77 said:

He's already signed for 2016, so they have to trade him to get out of his 2016 $. After this year's trade deadline, at the next chance the Pats have to trade him, his 2016 salary will be fully guaranteed.

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March 15, 2016 (1st day of the 2016 League Year) is when the salaries for the 2012 first round options become fully guaranteed.

Miguel said:

I said in another thread to expect a big-move cap-wise.

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Thank you Miguel. Back when they had this problem before and traded Milloy, how much room was created?

PATS68 said:

I could see them trading Chandler Jones. The writing is on the wall by the way they drafted. Two DE's and their biggest FA signing this year all play Jones position.

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I thought 43 defenses had more than one end. But obviously I must be mistaken. Good thing our other end from 2014 is as young as a newly born.

PatsWickedPissah said:

Look for Bob Kraft to launch a Go Fund Me webpage soon!

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Nope, car wash and bake sale...after they raise the money for the goal line cameras...

Seems silly to be wrestling with this now. Nothing's happening to Chandler Jones in the near future.

Belichick's never afraid to make the tough decisions when the time comes, and that will obviously continue. You can't keep everyone. But for now, all systems go.

DaBruinz said:

In what universe do you live in that Jones isn't?

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Brady and Gronk go ahead of Jones, OBVIOUSLY.

The next tranche includes 3 LBs, McCourty, and Vollmer for sure, along with Edelman, Solder, Jones and Ninkovich more debatably. Among newer players, we hope Sheard, Butler, Stork and 1 or 2 of the DTs will be in that group as well. Depending on how one views STs, Gostkowski and Slater might be in the discussion as well.

Few people would put Jones in the top 5 players on the team.
Most but not all would put him in the top 10.
Almost everybody would put him in the top 15.

Miguel said:

Recommend reading

http://www.patsfans.com/salary-cap/2015/09/07/where-did-the-…s-cap-space-go/ ‎

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Link doesn't work for me...

Miguel said:

Checked with multiple sources. Patriots did not reach an injury settlement with Kevin Hughes.

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How about Boyce, Groy, and Krause?

http://www.patsfans.com/salary-cap/2015/09/07/where-did-the-new-england-patriots-cap-space-go/

should work

captain stone said:

A couple of more suggestions:

Start injury-settling the JAGs on IR, most of whom - Boyce, Derby, Gaffney, Groy, Hughes, Krause, Tyms - will never contribute here (or anywhere else, probably).

And for the love of Ganja Almighty, get rid of Alan Branch immediately.

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As Miguel pointed out, it's tool late to come to settlements on Derby, Gaffney, Hughes, and Tyms.

As for Alan Branch, cutting him saves only $1.4M before his replacement, which is a minimum of $435K, so it would be less than $1M savings..