As an aside, his salary is only "fully guaranteed" because he was on the 53 man roster for Week 1 of the season. Had he not been, his salary wouldn't be guaranteed.
Also, from what I can tell, Flowers contract was a vet minimum contract of $790K.
Yes, his contract was guaranteed only because of his vested veteran status. I didn’t look it up but suspect he did sign for the vet minimum. If some team comes along with a prorated $2 million a year offer, he’d take it and sign of course.
That team will not be the Patriots until much later in the season because they don’t have the cap room or the easy means of creating more to take on any more salary. Whatever room and flexibility they have will be needed to replace injured players over the rest of the season and not be available to upgrade the bottom of the 53.
Miguel Benzan posted on BSJ Wednesday night regarding how tight the Pat’s cap is and historically how injuries over the rest of the season will require them clearing up more space just to cover additional replacements to the 53.
He promised a follow up post explaining how the Pats can clear up some space. It’s not been posted yet, but I’m real curious what he comes up with because I sure don’t see much flexibility.
Adding M. Flowers, Bucannon, Reddick or Collins would be an improvement, but the Pats cap situation will just not allow it.
To open a new topic of discussion, the best way I can see how the Patriots could open up additional cap space would be to trade a player with a higher salary who’s in the next to last year of their contract so the sped up bonus amortization would not wipe out the savings from the traded salary.
The Patriots have 3 players who fit that description: Brady, Gronk and D. McCourty. You can make an argument that with Duron Harmon replacing him and upgrades acquired from the created cap space that the Patriots could improve the team with such a move.
