salary cap explanation needed

[marwin2510]

I am regular on NFL Salary Cap, Player Contracts, Salaries, Bonuses and Analysis | Over the Cap trying to keep up with player cap numbers and overall available team cap, but I am still new to this and trying to learn it all.
How come that now we turned to 2022 OTC shows that NE has almost 16M$ to spend on 2021 season? I am pretty sure that last time I checked in 2021. we were well below 3 or 4M mark.
Is this money really now available for spending on some free agent?

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

I am regular on NFL Salary Cap, Player Contracts, Salaries, Bonuses and Analysis | Over the Cap trying to keep up with player cap numbers and overall available team cap, but I am still new to this and trying to learn it all.
How come that now we turned to 2022 OTC shows that NE has almost 16M$ to spend on 2021 season? I am pretty sure that last time I checked in 2021. we were well below 3 or 4M mark.
Is this money really now available for spending on some free agent?

I am not a salary cap guy. The only way I know that the cap would grow is the LTBE are initially included in the cap calc, and as the season nears an end those LTBE dollars are not earned. But it does not seem like this would be $3M to $16M. Of course we traded Gilmore so a portion of his salary came off the cap.

 

[Gumby]

I am not a salary cap guy. The only way I know that the cap would grow is the LTBE are initially included in the cap calc, and as the season nears an end those LTBE dollars are not earned. But it does not seem like this would be $3M to $16M. Of course we traded Gilmore so a portion of his salary came off the cap.

Maybe it was N’Keal‘s likely to be earned incentives?

seriously though, the only recent action was the re-signing of Phillips. They could have moved a few M down the road with that deal.

 

[zipster9]

Here is the estimated cap (subject to change)

 

[jmt57]

I am regular on NFL Salary Cap, Player Contracts, Salaries, Bonuses and Analysis | Over the Cap trying to keep up with player cap numbers and overall available team cap, but I am still new to this and trying to learn it all.
How come that now we turned to 2022 OTC shows that NE has almost 16M$ to spend on 2021 season? I am pretty sure that last time I checked in 2021. we were well below 3 or 4M mark.
Is this money really now available for spending on some free agent?

I compared OTC to Spotrac, and although they have minor differences both sites list the Patriots as currently having a fair amount of cap space.

$7,654,420 per Spotrac https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/new-england-patriots/cap/
$15,984,404 per OTC New England Patriots Salary Cap | Over the Cap

My first thought was that perhaps the Adrian Phillips extension freed up some money, but I doubt it would be that much.

So I checked to see what Miguel had to say, and he still list the Pats as having $2,188,502 in space.


My money is on @Miguel, based on historical performance. Maybe the calendar turning to the year 2022 did something wonky to the formulas in the spreadsheets at OTC and Spotrac, perhaps due to LTBE bonuses not yet being paid out.

https://twitter.com/patscap

 

[zipster9]

I think if they give up front cash, it does not go against the cap....