Question for cap experts, re: extensions for McCourty and Gostkowski

[stevedogc]

I've been reading a lot on these boards about how the Pats can save 2014 cap space. One way is to extend certain players. McCourty and Gostkowski are two players who are being brought up. And for obvious reason, they are both going into the final year of their contracts and account for nearly 9 million in cap space for 2014. My question is how much could the Pats reasonably save if they extend each play and how does it work? DO they convert some of 2014 salary into their future contract?

 

[DaBruinz]

Steve - there are various ways to do it. Some of it is converting the salary to signing bonus and then dividing it across the contract. But they can only reduce it to the vet min for what the player is qualified for.

Gostkowski and McCourty both have a vet minimum of 730K.

Gostkowski's salary is 2.9M. So, he could have slightly less than 2.2M to spread over the extension.

McCourty's salary is 3.29M. So he could have 2.6M to spread over the extension.

 

[mgteich]

One should remember that the remaining bonuses from the last contract are due this year and cannot be put into a new contract.

 

[DaBruinz]

One should remember that the remaining bonuses from the last contract are due this year and cannot be put into a new contract.

Can you show us where it was said otherwise?

 

[stevedogc]

Steve - there are various ways to do it. Some of it is converting the salary to signing bonus and then dividing it across the contract. But they can only reduce it to the vet min for what the player is qualified for.

Gostkowski and McCourty both have a vet minimum of 730K.

Gostkowski's salary is 2.9M. So, he could have slightly less than 2.2M to spread over the extension.

McCourty's salary is 3.29M. So he could have 2.6M to spread over the extension.

So that being the case that means the Pats have the ability to save up to 4.8 mil in '14 cap space by extending these two. Im not advocating doing this. Im sure that teams can really hurt themselves by doing that to often, but I would like to see both McCourty and Gostkowski extended, and if you can save 1-2 mil on the '14 salary cap, it certainly would help.

 

[mgteich]

I didn't quote your post. I did not suggest that you made any misstatements.

Can you show us where it was said otherwise?

 

[mgteich]

See below for analysis of the best cap expert around.

In any case, it is not necessarily an easy thing to extend top players. I certainly favor extending Gostkowski and McCourty if we can. I think that Gostkowski is likely, since we pay so much for kickers. McCourty is less likely.

In any case, these extensions would be worth about $1M each against the cap, based on projected contracts. Miguel includes the analysis in the article below.

2014 Patriots Salary Cap Picture atriots Salary Cap

So that being the case that means the Pats have the ability to save up to 4.8 mil in '14 cap space by extending these two. Im not advocating doing this. Im sure that teams can really hurt themselves by doing that to often, but I would like to see both McCourty and Gostkowski extended, and if you can save 1-2 mil on the '14 salary cap, it certainly would help.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

So that being the case that means the Pats have the ability to save up to 4.8 mil in '14 cap space by extending these two. Im not advocating doing this. Im sure that teams can really hurt themselves by doing that to often, but I would like to see both McCourty and Gostkowski extended, and if you can save 1-2 mil on the '14 salary cap, it certainly would help.

FWIW, if they gave Gostkowski a deal relatively similar to the one they worked out in 2010, it'd save ~$1M.