That free agency "haul" was crap, as many of us said at the time. Jonnu Smith, Hunter Henry, and Nelson Agholor for roughly $40M AAV? How is that efficient spending? The Pats backloaded those contracts, so now the big money is due. And they're not two year contracts for Smith and Henry; trying to get out of them next year would come at a fairly big dead cap hit, so they'd need to extend them to spread it out. Smith, in particular, might be the worst FA signing in the NFL last year. They'd need to take a cap hit of over $13M in 2023 just to part ways with him, as he's almost fully guaranteed for three years. People don't realize just how "all-in" the Patriots were in 2021. They paid very little on their FA signings and backloaded it aggressively, way above the cap spike percentage.
What do you mean by "maximizes flexibility" ? Sounds like some Billspeak to spin everything into an ingenious move, when in fact the 2021 contracts were completely against the grain of everything Bill has done previously in free agency. These contracts do not maximize flexibility at all; they're merely huge money dumps that tie up cap space to minimize flexibility. They lost a star player (Jackson) and had almost no money to spend this offseason for a reason.
Hunter Henry (cap hit)
2021 - 6.8
2022 - 15
2023 - 15.5 (or dead cap of 5)
Jonnu Smith
2021 - 5.6
2022 - 13.7
2023 - 14.8
2024 - 15.8 (or dead cap of 3.8)
Nelson Agholor
2021 - 6.9
2022 - 14.8
2021 Total Cap Hit: 19.3
2022 Total Cap Hit: 43.8
It's an open question if Agholor is even good enough to make the roster, or maybe he'll be a #4 type of receiver. Smith isn't good and never has been. Henry is a solid, unspectacular tight end. They're paying 43.8M this year for those three. That's embarassing.