You could say that about almost any player on the roster and forgo attempts to upgrade for fear of losing ground. Talib and Vollmer come to mind.
It will all come down to what they think he's worth this season. If it isn't $5M cash and $4.5M against the cap they'll do something about it. Hell, these are the same guys who approached Waters to restructure $500K of his $1.4M in salary into incentives coming off a pro bowl season even though it wouldn't have lowered his cap hit. And then couldn't get him to report for $4M. God knows we didn't have any filet mignon lurking in the wings, but at the end of the day we still finished the season just a game short of the previous seasons mark and that finish had little to do with who played RG...
Ocho was a huge miscalculation that left a bad taste. But it's not like they haven't been able to find guys from outside the system who could be plugged in to a role outside the numbers before. Stallworth was a decent fit and Jab was better than decent given he was half the cost.
I still think the move is to talk Lloyd into incentivizing all or most of that option bonus money. The caveat is he's a different kind of guy and not sure how he responds to being challenged to earn it. Plus he's a Condon client, so his agent is likely to advise him to take a hard line. Just don't see his market backing that stand, though. But if push comes to shove I would be more inclined to put that $5M to better use, including funding part of an extension for Welker. Using the freed up cap space to bring back both Woodhead and Edelman.
I think that your post certainly makes sense. The one part I would respectfully disagree may be the comparison to Talib and Vollmer however, since they are 2 players that really aren't trying to be upgraded per se. They are players who are free agents who are likely going to demand too much money than the team wishes to pay or can afford. If anything one could make an argument that the team is actually expecting a bit of a decline in those 2 replacements, although that will be offset with the potential cap savings of not having to pay something in the range of 7 million+ aav (just for example) for them.
I do however, see your point and there are some similarities in the fact that Talib and Vollmer are players that the team probably doesn't see the same market value with as some other teams, and even though they will likely get paid a much higher amount than Llyod, they are all 3 players who the front office may feel are too expensive to keep, so that is where you were most likely going with that.
If Belichick feels that the best thing to do would be to approach Llyod with a potential shift of monies, then that would be ideal. Like you said, it may not go over too well for the reasons you provided. Is there any possibility that a smaller portion of the bonus money may be incentivized to where they could potentially reach something agreeable in the middle?
My stance is that there are obvious improvements that can be made, but considering that Llyod and Brady only played together for a year and he did pretty well without the benefit of having both TE's together to take some focus away, I may be okay with keeping him for another year with that 4.5 million hit, if that's what it came down to.
Llyod's knowledge of the system and having a year in with Brady may prove to be more of a 'sure thing' than taking a gamble on a player of equal talent range. Now if it would come down to Welker or Llyod, then that's a no-brainer.
