If I were a PHI fan, I would be happy that my 10-6 team is doing what it needs to do to improve. Signing Maxwell and perhaps McCourty for $20M AAV is just what a competitive team with over $40M in cap room might do to improve its secondary.
As I have been saying, over and lever again, is that problem for the patriots in re-signing McCourty and Revis is NOT the jets.
There are lots and lots of teams with lots and lots of cap money. In addition, there are teams that have lots of cash that they must spend in 2015 and 2016. The reality may NOT be that Maxwell isn't worth $10M a year. The reality may be that he is worth exactly that in the 2015 off-season market.
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How much should the patriots be willing to pay McCourty and Revis? Yes, this is somewhat dictated by the fact that the patriots are one of the only teams over the cap at the moment.
The current market seems to indicate that the patriots will need to pay more than most here would pay in order to keep Revis and/or McCourty. Both will have lots of bidders on the open market, and probably some from competitive teams like PHI.
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BOTTOM LINE
The following teams have over $25M in cap space. IMHO, I can see players choosing at least one of these teams if the goal was good money from a competitive team.
PHI
INDY
GB
ATL
CHI
CIN
SD
SEA
It is not the case that players can choose between the patriots and teams at the bottom of their divisions.