Free Agents - Defense Here Is The Problem.

Ochmed Jones said:

For the secondary, d mccourty will have serious suitors. He can get a big payday by leaving, but I think we resign him at a relatively affordable price.

I think we should sign Poole as a free agent CB.

that leaves us Gilmore, Jackson, Jones, Poole, and j mccourty as corners.

at safety we have d mccourty, Harmon, Chung, Williams and obi.

this is a seriously talented secondary.

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FCB02062 said:

Why would you spend all your money on defense? They had a defense that held KC to 23 and Tennessee to 14, yet the offense was so bad that on multiple occasions the coach thought his team's best chance to score was via a blocked punt as opposed to his offense mounting a 70 yard TD drive in crunch time.

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farn said:

I could see the safety situation w/o Chung & DMac. In that scenario, I would predict Harmon & Brooks. But I’d also expect to see Harmon & J Jones. In that scenario, I could see JoeJuan on the first to cover tall receivers or TEs.

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• Van Noy is where the money will have to go, if you're trying to keep things in place
• McCourty's not coming back at $9m + roster bonuses. He'd be playing for less
  
• Butler's an RFA
• Slater's not going to command more than the sort of money he got in the past couple of years
• Ebner's not going to command more than the sort of money he's gotten in recent years
• Roberts is a good depth guy, but the Patriots are not likely to give him starter level LB money
• Calhoun's a non-entity. He's not getting paid, either here or elsewhere. He should be a minimum/minimum plus kind of signing
• I'm a bit worried about Shelton. I thought he played better than the previous year, but I didn't see anything in his game that made me think he's worth more than the kind of money he got this past year. And I'm concerned that someone is going to overpay the guy.

farn said:

I could see the safety situation w/o Chung & DMac. In that scenario, I would predict Harmon & Brooks. But I’d also expect to see Harmon & J Jones. In that scenario, I could see JoeJuan on the first to cover tall receivers or TEs.

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skinnydog said:

I'm really hoping that DMac is back. He may be somewhat overpaid, but he is the glue for the secondary. I don't see Harmon as a replacement for him at all.

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mgteich said:

Yes, we won the division, and had a 12-4 record, because of the great defense.

You conclude that, therefore, no significant money needs to be spent on defense.

???

I agree that this would be true if the following players come back for vet minimum compensation: Shelton, Butler, Calhoun, Collins, Van Noy, Roberts and McCourty.
These players will take a considerable amount of cap money to sign or replace.

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Deus Irae said:

If you start by considering Collins gone (report during the year was that he was going to be chasing the dollars), the defense money actually shouldn't be that big an expenditure.

• Van Noy is where the money will have to go, if you're trying to keep things in place
• McCourty's not coming back at $9m + roster bonuses. He'd be playing for less
  
• Butler's an RFA
• Slater's not going to command more than the sort of money he got in the past couple of years
• Ebner's not going to command more than the sort of money he's gotten in recent years
• Roberts is a good depth guy, but the Patriots are not likely to give him starter level LB money
• Calhoun's a non-entity. He's not getting paid, either here or elsewhere. He should be a minimum/minimum plus kind of signing
• I'm a bit worried about Shelton. I thought he played better than the previous year, but I didn't see anything in his game that made me think he's worth more than the kind of money he got this past year. And I'm concerned that someone is going to overpay the guy.

So, unless I'm misreading the market (certainly not an impossibility), these re-signings shouldn't be particularly problematic.


For me, the biggest issue for the defense is not FA retention. It's finding the needed additions/improvements. Even if the team keeps Shelton, this team needs run stuffing tank on the DL. Even if they bring back both Van Noy and Roberts, the team needs to bring in a quality cover LB and a Collins replacement (if Collins shocks the hell out me by taking Patriots money to return next year, it's just the cover LB that's a need). And, even if Chung and Devin McCourty are both back, this team should look to bring in another quality safety. And, of course, the team should always be looking to see if they can find an edge rusher.

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mgteich said:

NOT THAT BIG AN EXPENDITURE?
OK, let's ignore Calhoun and Ebner, and presume that Chung is back.

What is the cost to sign or replace the following 7 players?
D McCourty
Van Noy
Collins
Roberts
Butler (1st round RFA compensation is $4.66M; 2nd round is $3.3M)
Slater (why should a probowler take a pay cut?)
Shelton

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• Collins: likely gone for the money
• Van Noy: THE expenditure to keep, if you want to bring him back. The market will decide the numbers
  
• McCourty, 2019: $9m base, $500k in game roster bonus, cap hit $13.4m. Why would you expect him to get that to return, at age 35?
  
• Slater: 2019: $2.8m base, $400k in game roster bonus, cap hit $5.1m. Why would you think he'd get much more than that?
• Ebner: $3.2m base, $600m in game roster bonus, cap hit $4.9m. Why would you expect him to get much more than that?
  
• Butler: an RFA, so his number is locked in to one of two slots, unless the team wants to give him a longer term deal.
• Roberts is a good depth guy, but the Patriots are not likely to give him starter level LB money. Last year, he made a little over #2m. Do you think they're going to decide to pay him starting LB money in 2020?
  
• Shelton: To repeat my earlier post, I'm a bit worried about Shelton. I thought he played better than the previous year, but I didn't see anything in his game that made me think he's worth more than the kind of money he got this past year. And I'm concerned that someone is going to overpay the guy.

kennyb said:

Both mccourtys, hightower, everyone on defense who is a fa needs to go. The idea of spending 3m on a special teams only player? That's nuts.

I would keep van noy and or collins if they're cheap.

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kennyb said:

.

I would keep van noy and or collins if they're cheap.

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Deus Irae said:

I'm not sure you actually read my post, given your response, but let's look at the individuals:

• Collins: likely gone for the money
• Van Noy: THE expenditure to keep, if you want to bring him back. The market will decide the numbers
  
• McCourty, 2019: $9m base, $500k in game roster bonus, cap hit $13.4m. Why would you expect him to get that to return, at age 35?
  
• Slater: 2019: $2.8m base, $400k in game roster bonus, cap hit $5.1m. Why would you think he'd get much more than that?
• Ebner: $3.2m base, $600m in game roster bonus, cap hit $4.9m. Why would you expect him to get much more than that?
  
• Butler: an RFA, so his number is locked in to one of two slots, unless the team wants to give him a longer term deal.
• Roberts is a good depth guy, but the Patriots are not likely to give him starter level LB money. Last year, he made a little over #2m. Do you think they're going to decide to pay him starting LB money in 2020?
  
• Shelton: To repeat my earlier post, I'm a bit worried about Shelton. I thought he played better than the previous year, but I didn't see anything in his game that
• 
  
• made me think he's worth more than the kind of money he got this past year. And I'm concerned that someone is going to overpay the guy.

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mgteich said:

I was a reacting to this stamens that you made
"the defense money actually shouldn't be that big an expenditure."


I'm not arguing with you. I'm asking what do you think that it will cost to keep the defensive players that you think are likely to stay. I make no comparisons to 2019 for individual players. I'm interested in how much of new cap room will be taken up by our free agents or their replacements. I agree that Collins is gone. I guess that for this exercise, we can presume that Collins is replaced by Winovich or a draftee. Below I have a WAG of $34M. The problem with just saying that we will lose Van Noy or McCourty is that it will still cost money to replace them. I suspect that we would spend $4M on a replacement.

4 Shelton
4 Butler
7 Van Noy
4 Roberts
7 McCourty
4 Slater
4 Ebner

I'm just getting what we are likely to spend on re-signing or replacing our defensive and ST free agents.

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• If you're spending $4m on a McCourty replacement (your number), you're saving more than $5m compared to last year.
• If you're spending $4m on a Van Noy replacement (your number), you're saving a couple of hundred thousands compared to last year.
• If Slater and Ebner are getting about the same as last year, there's no significant change in outlay there.

mgteich said:

Yes, we won the division, and had a 12-4 record, because of the great defense.

You conclude that, therefore, no significant money needs to be spent on defense.

???

I agree that this would be true if the following players come back for vet minimum compensation: Shelton, Butler, Calhoun, Collins, Van Noy, Roberts and McCourty.
These players will take a considerable amount of cap money to sign or replace.

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Deus Irae said:

Ok, but I still don't see your issue here. I'm not going to be able to give you exact numbers, at this time. Nobody is going to be able to give you exact numbers, at this time.

• If you're spending $4m on a McCourty replacement (your number), you're saving more than $5m compared to last year.
• If you're spending $4m on a Van Noy replacement (your number), you're saving a couple of hundred thousands compared to last year.
• If Slater and Ebner are getting about the same as last year, there's no significant change in outlay there.

That leaves Butler (RFA slot numbers, as already discussed), Roberts (Not likely to reach starting LB money in N.E., IMO, as mentioned), and Shelton (the problem/issue player, as I discussed).

That's not a big expenditure.


And, finally, that's actual money numbers, not cap. Unlike, for example, McCourty's last year ($9m base, $500k roster, $13.4m cap), the numbers I've been talking about are clean generalities. The team isn't likely to need to hand out big bonus dollars to anyone on the list, other than Van Noy. So cap can be manipulated, as needed, if the team wants to do some pushing into future years, without too much impact.

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