Yes, you need to worry about cap space - from a planning perspective.
No, you don’t need to make a move now. You don’t actually need to make the move until it’s necessary.
How does leaving your cap-space creation options open = boxing yourself into a decision? What the Patriots have done so far is basically purchase what they feel they need, and defer making the decision on how to pay for it until the last possible moment. Why would you pay for it now if you don’t have to - if what looks like the best method of payment on March 22 isn’t the best method of payment on September 2, and you don’t actually need to make a decision until September 2?
Spending all of your cap space and not having enough to operate through a season is boxing yourself in
I think I may have misread your original point, and/or didn't express myself clearly. So I apologize if there was a misunderstanding.
I would agree that spending money on additional players at this point boxes you in to having to do something to create cap space in the future. The point I was making (which may be a complete red herring) is that the actual manner of creating that cap space doesn't need to be determined until September, and that selecting an option today could box yourself in if it turns out a better option would have been available in September.
That leads to the next question on the intended use of today's new cap space - I've posted the entire sequence for reference:
If that’s the only move, I will be disappointed. According to Miguel, they had around 2.5 million in cap space before this Gilmore restructuring. If they needed more than that to re-sign Gost, that would be a major overpay, IMO. He doesn’t have much bargaining power, unless the bears are making a push to sign him behind the scenes. I personally hope that they bring in a rookie kicker to compete with him.
Hopefully this indicates that another deal will soon to be announced as well.
We still need money for draft picks, players 52 and 53, Ir players, a practice squad and in season pick ups.
This isn’t extra money to spend it’s one step toward getting out of cap poverty.
Money for draft picks, sure. But you don’t need to worry about players 52, 53, IR and mid season pickups until September. No need to rush that decision now if you don’t need to; it just might work itself out naturally (i.e. someone like Guy, Pennel, Burkhead, etc. looking like crap in preseason and being outplayed by a rookie) or it might now. Clearly more space will be needed then. But if you don’t absolutely need the space right now, no need to box yourself into a decision now.
To summarize, I read this as discussing the necessity of immediate cap space creation. Manxman speculated the current move was made because of a Gost signing, Patsgofor4 stated that he was hoping that they'd use the immediate money for more than just Gost. You then responded saying they need money for long-term future items (players 52/53, IR, practice squad, midseason pickups), therefore they cannot sign anyone else right now, and that this move is just a first step to getting out of cap poverty. I stated the team didn't need to make today's cap space adjustment for those future needs and in fact doing so may cause a bad decision when all the information isn't in yet; from there one could infer that I think the Patriots could be using this space for immediate player transactions (which would be an accurate inference).
You are missing the point. There is a lot of cap space needed down the road. Assuming none of it is from what is available now is obtuse.
They can’t just wish new cap money.
When you look at the big picture there isn’t reasonably enough space to clear to handle those other expenses if you took it down to zero today, meaning anywhere from some to all of the Gilmore money is for future needs.
- "You are missing the point. There is a lot of cap space needed down the road." Agreed, I never argued that, and in fact I acknowledged it in my first post.
- "Assuming none of it is from what is available now is obtuse." I never said none of it could potentially be used for that purpose. But assuming that none of the space created today will be used on additional moves prior to September 2 to try to improve the team (additional free agent signings, trades) is just as obtuse. The $2.5M they had as of yesterday effectively covered their draft picks and all UDFAs coming to camp. You're effectively assuming that the entire $5.67M is going to cover cap space needs at cut down. But do you think it's realistic that the team will have no other transaction which impacts the top 51 between now and cutdowns? That's not at all in line with the team's history.
- "They can’t just wish new cap money." Thanks Dad.
- "When you look at the big picture there isn’t reasonably enough space to clear to handle those other expenses if you took it down to zero today, meaning anywhere from some to all of the Gilmore money is for future needs."
Depends on your definition of reasonable. The Patriots entered the 2018 regular season (after cut downs) with only $5M in cap space available for mid-season pickups, so it's been done (it was the lowest they had ever been though). The obvious example of a Tom Brady 2 year extension could produce up to $9.33M in 2019 cap space, and $29.67M in 2020 and 2021 cap charges if it provides guaranteed $25M in base salaries in those years. Look at his salary cap history and you'll see that they've done that type of extension for Brady in the past (convert all but $1M in base to bonus). Unreasonable for Brady to accept only $25M a year in new money, or for the Patriots to fully guarantee that money at his age? Maybe. But $9.33M will cover players 52/53 (~$1M for rookies/vet minimums in those roles), practice squad($2M assuming a few make more than minimum), IR/waived injured during preseason ($1.3M with split arrangements to pay for replacements), and in-season acquisitions and IR moves ($5M).
There are other examples and other combinations which could produce similar / slightly more, but Brady is the easiest and most obvious. The key is to extend a player you want extended at a price that's fair for prospective performance and not an overpay, and not just restructure for the sake of restructuring and/or overpay when making an extension. That is where a team can get into cap hell. The Patriots historically have been very good at avoiding that. And as mentioned in my first post, those options aren't just extensions but rather include trading / cutting players whose performance in camp (and long term projection) is not significantly better than a much cheaper option.
But yes, more cap space will be needed regardless of whether this was just a first step towards creating the space for September 2, or whether it is just for immediate need, or a combination of both.
