$16.6 mill dead money + $9 mill free space...

[BradyManny]

You said this "I can't explain the free space other than Bill wanted to roll money over, and we couldn't find the guys we wanted in FA for the price we wanted." which makes it sound like we had this cap space then. Which we didn't. We spent a lot in FA and didn't have that much cap left. You can explain that free space by telling the truth. Which is that we didn't have it.

Fair enough. I guess I'm assuming Belichick knew they were going to cut or trade Mankins, which right now doesn't seem a safe assumption since our plans for replacing him were not very good.

 

[FredFromDartmouth]

Renegotiating contracts and chiseling salaries


The Patriots are really, really good at this. In fact I think that they would win the Super Bowl of Cheap Players. They are the best, so at least we can hang our hat on that. You can have your Tommy Kelly, Wes Welker, Emmanuel Sander, Steve Smith, Mike Wallace, and Logan Mankins, we don't need those bums. We have money and cap! Yahoo. Brady will be gone soon also and we will be the world champion cap managers.

No need to get upset at the Patriots; they have accomplished their goal--field the cheapest team possible. Years of work toward their goal came to fruition last night.