Brady restructures to save $7.2M against this year's cap

[MoLewisrocks]

Brady likely stepped up because he will get another restructure/extension probably early in 2013 to allow them to lower that $21M cap hit. Their only other option for restructure with substantial saving was Wilfork and they probably aren't as comfortable they will be extending his deal... Mankins and Mayo's deals are in the early stages with low salary so not much to be saved by simple restructure.

Ocho can be cut tomorrow and treated as a June 1 cut saving $3M in salary against the cap this year and next (with $1.5M dead cap hits in each year). If they restructure him the dead cap remains the same and the savings comes in the form of a reduction in salary now and potentially the remainder if he's cut prior to the season.

Welker would need to be signed to a 4 year deal to create appreciable cap space ($4M+) because they would be amortizing a $16-18M signing bonus over 4 years with low salaries the first two years to cover the guaranteed money ($20M+). If they did a three year deal the savings would be much less. Two years there just wouldn't be much at all.

Sounds like we were pretty close to tapping out since what we now have is essentially what Tom freed up. Tom has most of his remaining money guaranteed for injury and cap with rolling guarantees for skill that kick in at the end of the preceeding year. Continuing to give it to him up front won't pose much of a problem provided there are years added on to spread the desired amortization that creates the space. It will make it harder however to do a truly cap friendly final deal since he now has more dead cap sitting on the next two years and that can't be moved - new money will just be layered on top of it. And based on the Manning deal and pending the Brees deal I imagine they know his extended years are going to be in the $20M per range. They could have considered tagging him for two final seasons but this restructure will probably make that a moot point because of the 120% rule - which would put those years at $25-30M.... So that is now his leverage for his to retirement extension.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Interesting thing about the draft money and the reserve. You'd think you'd have account for that money now as the draft approaches, but last week someone pointed out that draft money doesn't come due until September.....and a lot can happen between then and now. I say spend like a drunken sailor now and then sort out the rest at the end of training camp.

They will have to have it before that. They need to be able to sign draftees and that usually begins a week or two before camp and if they draft 4 players in the top two rounds they will immediately be replacing players at the bottom of the top 51.

 

[DaBruinz]

Instead of using Jetscap, use this site..

New England Patriots 2012 Salary Cap

It's run by one of our own and his numbers are more accurate.

Now, he doesn't have the Brady update or the contract info on Allen, Gallery or Stallworth.

According to his numbers, we'd be looking at just over 11 million without Allen, Gallery or Stallworth. I believe that Stallworth got a vet min deal. I know that Gallery's deal was a 1 year deal. I wouldn't be surprised if Allen got a 1 yr/vet min deal. So, I am going to guess that the Pats have around $8-$9 million left.

 

[patfanken]

Another reason why TFB is "THE MAN".....damn....I know his wife makes more but this gesture shows he is about winning another freaking SB.....Thanks Tom and Pats Front Office!

Don't thank Tom. He didn't sacrifice a single dime. Its all just accounting.

BTW- before we start sounding like Jet fans, you really don't want to be "restructuring" players to create cap room as a habit. There are consequences to this kind of "voodoo economy". For the next 3 years the Pats will have 2.4MM LESS cap space than they would have had they not done it.

Well it may be OK to do a guy or two every couple of years, in the long run its NOT a good policy, because, unlike what Felger says, it not only limits your FA acquisition, it can effect how you handle your own players. Go and check that Jets cap page (which is now about the only place to go for info on the Pats cap.....MIGUEL....where are you?...but I digress) You will notice that currently the Jets have 5 players who EACH carry over $20MM in potential dead money. Its a total of over $133MM if you count the top 7 players.

Now these are not guys the Jets are likely to cut any time soon, but if their play regressed over the next few years, the Jets would be unable to release them because of the dead money. If any of the 7 suffered a catastrophic injury they'd be F'd, Because of poor contract structure, they couldn't release Scott or Pace....and neither of those guys are among the top 7.

The Jets have been avoiding "cap hell" for the last few years like Bernie Madolf did before the Feds closed in. Its a ponzi scheme. Last year they had $8MM in unused cap space they couldn't spend because of heavy costs they new would be coming due this year.Holmes cap number was $2.6MM last year. Nice accounting but now his numbers will explode BEYOND $10MM/yr in coming years.....and he's a cancer they can't afford to cut out.

The point here is, sure we can go out and create a lot of cap space. Take Welker LT, restructure Wilfolk, and some other guys, etc etc, and we can get back to $20 odd million, no porblem But in the end its not a good idea, every guy you restructure now adds cap costs each year for the rest of his contract. Every guy you do it to restricts your flexibility to move him if needed..You DON'T want to end up keeping a guy, just because his dead money number would be too high. THAT is Jets-like.

 

[TyronePoole]

^ yeah but how much does the cap go up in the next few years? At this point I think it's pretty safe to say the Pats aren't going to be putting themselves in cap hell

 

[patfanken]

Instead of using Jetscap, use this site..

New England Patriots 2012 Salary Cap

It's run by one of our own and his numbers are more accurate.

Now, he doesn't have the Brady update or the contract info on Allen, Gallery or Stallworth.

According to his numbers, we'd be looking at just over 11 million without Allen, Gallery or Stallworth. I believe that Stallworth got a vet min deal. I know that Gallery's deal was a 1 year deal. I wouldn't be surprised if Allen got a 1 yr/vet min deal. So, I am going to guess that the Pats have around $8-$9 million left.

DB is there a way you could "sticky" that site to the top of the board for future reference.

 

[Sciz]

Bedard says $11.5M right now.

 

[Joker]

DB is there a way you could "sticky" that site to the top of the board for future reference.

yes...please...some mod needs to do it...

 

[patfanken]

They will have to have it before that. They need to be able to sign draftees and that usually begins a week or two before camp and if they draft 4 players in the top two rounds they will immediately be replacing players at the bottom of the top 51.

Yeah, but that money isn't needed until they actually sign the deal, not when they are draft. Usually that won't happen until the end of July. Often, though not generally with the Pats, some of those signings don't happen until later in August.

My point was, I originally thought that draft money had to be set aside beforehand. I was wrong. The money allocated by the league to cover a team's draft picks only counts when they actually sign the deal, and usually that's JUST before camp starts.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

^ yeah but how much does the cap go up in the next few years? At this point I think it's pretty safe to say the Pats aren't going to be putting themselves in cap hell

The cap will remain flat next season. In 2014 it should go up by double digits due to the new TV deals kicking in. But the media often overestimates the effect and the impact as lots of teams are already spending that money in contract structure. The league will likely phase the increase in so the total effect won't hit the cap all at once in 2014. But after it goes up $10-15M in 2014 it will likely increase at up to several million per year for the remainder of the deal. But at the same time agent contract demands will increase in anticipation of those increases...

 

[patfanken]

Bedard says $11.5M right now.

Is that pre or post the Brady restructure

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Yeah, but that money isn't needed until they actually sign the deal, not when they are draft. Usually that won't happen until the end of July. Often, though not generally with the Pats, some of those signings don't happen until later in August.

My point was, I originally thought that draft money had to be set aside beforehand. I was wrong. The money allocated by the league to cover a team's draft picks only counts when they actually sign the deal, and usually that's JUST before camp starts.

Draft picks are signed in July, the goal being to have them all signed when camp opens usually the last week of July. That will now be the case even moreso with holdouts less likely due to the rookie scale.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Is that pre or post the Brady restructure

Post, and as he states by his amateur calculations, not anything he's being fed. Micronin's figures are probably closer to actual, and even his - as were Miguel's - are only best guesstimates based on media reported contract details which are often not exact.

Greg A. Bedard‏@GregABedard

By my amateur calculations, about $11.5 million RT @shageman13: Know how much cap room the Pats have now after adding Brady's $7.2?

 

[ATippett56]

Donte' Stallworth - New England Patriots - 2012 Player Profile - Rotoworld.com

3/19/2012: Signed a one-year, $875,000 contract. The deal included a $25,000 signing bonus. 2012: $825,000 (+ $25,000 workout bonus), 2013: Free Agent

Robert Gallery - New England Patriots - 2012 Player Profile - Rotoworld.com

Contract details not updated

Will Allen - New England Patriots - 2012 Player Profile - Rotoworld.com

3/21/2012: Signed a one-year, $975,000 contract. The deal included a $25,000 signing bonus. 2012: $925,000 (+ $50,000 workout bonus), 2013: Free Agent

 

[BradyFTW!]

Isn't this what some people have been criticizing the Jets for constantly doing? What's the difference here?

The difference is that it's Tom Brady and not Mark Sanchez.

 

[Brady2Moss]

I know this is not the best source, but incarcerated bob is saying wallace is in contract talks with the bengals, patriots, and broncos. The talks with the bengals and patriots are serious. He was right about manning in Denver and a few other things so take it for what its worth.

 

[smg93]

^ yeah but how much does the cap go up in the next few years? At this point I think it's pretty safe to say the Pats aren't going to be putting themselves in cap hell

The problem is that the cap number goes up not just for the Pats but for every other team as well. If you're pushing cap hits to later years all the time, you'll have less to spend on FA's and the like versus other teams because you use up your additional space on cap hits while the other teams who didn't do this have full use of the additional dollars due to the higher cap.

 

[supafly]

I know this is not the best source, but incarcerated bob is saying wallace is in contract talks with the bengals, patriots, and broncos. The talks with the bengals and patriots are serious. He was right about manning in Denver and a few other things so take it for what its worth.

Oh, shoot...here we go again

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing someone take him away from the Steelers.

 

[Marqui]

I know this is not the best source, but incarcerated bob is saying wallace is in contract talks with the bengals, patriots, and broncos. The talks with the bengals and patriots are serious. He was right about manning in Denver and a few other things so take it for what its worth.

There's no way the Pats are spending all that money on more offense.

 

[strngplyr]

There's no way the Pats are spending all that money on more offense.

It would be nice to fix the defense in a single season, but, we have Tom ****** Brady as our QB and this league has never favored the offense more than it does today. I could see us spending everything on offense and rebuilding the D and running game completely once TFB retires.

I don't know if I buy this rumor, actually I find it pretty unlikely to be true, but I wouldn't totally be shocked if that was the approach either. On the biggest stages last season it was our offense that faltered while the defense stepped up like it hadn't done all season.