If Tate goes for anything in the ballpark of Cooks money then yeah, but his contract that just ended had a $6M AAV, while Cooks' current contract has a $16M AAV.
Cooks is better than Tate, no doubt about that. but if you can get Tate for half the money then I'll take that over paying Cooks any day. Especially because I think Cook is a mediocre-to-bad match to Brady's strengths, while Tate is a fantastic match whose strengths align well with Brady's own.
I'm not sure Cooks is "better" than Tate, but rather they are 2 completely different receivers as far as their skills go. Clearly the premium pay checks are going by and large to those receivers who are perceived as being able to "stretch the field", which Cooks obvious does.
For what the Pats do offensively Tate would obviously fit in very well and be an upgrade to Hogan or Dorsett. However cost is going to be a HUGE issue and test the veracity of Tate's "love" to play with the Pats.
I didn't think much of it at first, but people who opine that it would be some kind of heresy to pay any FA WR more than what we pay JE have a legitimate concern. It's a bit overblown, imo, but there nonetheless.
There's also the issue of our own cap situation. Miguel has us at about $17MM under the cap right now, with the ability to reasonably get to $30-40MM given some extensions, retirements, releases, and salary cuts.
Lets say the number gets to $30MM over the next 2months. I can't see the Pats paying any WR $10MM cap hit, when they need to add youth and production on the DL, S, and LB
If Tate wants to play for that $8MM/yr range, they'd do it for him, imo. BTW- I love Jules as much as the next guy and understand just how important he was to this last Superbowl run, BUT over the last 2 season, he's missed 20 games, and still got paid for most of them. Besides, I don't think that he's one of those guys who gives a good sh!t about who makes what.