I appreciate the thoughtful response. And I don’t necessarily disagree with all, or even any, of your points. From my perspective, here is my concern:
- lots of restructuring of contracts can be done, but are there any players you’d be willing to risk potential excess future dead money over if they don’t work out? I think Mills is the one guy I’d do it with in a heartbeat, he was everything they expected and then some. Judon? We have ri be really certain that his fall off as both a pass rusher and run defender was circumstance related and not him coming back down to earth.
Agholor? Not sure if he performed well enough to warrant that future risk. Henry? Possibly, I suppose.
Teams can restructure the players contract, changing Salary to SB without the player agreeing to it though most do because they get the money up front and it lessens the tax burden when playing in other states.
Candidates for that:
Judon, Henry, Smith, Mills., Bourne
Candidates for Extensions.
Mason, McCourty, Jon Jones, Godchaux, Agholor
Candidates to be Cut:
Agholor, Godchaux, Van Noy, Guy, Anderson,
- the other thing is these restructuring will take away from the 2023 cap (which is plentiful now), and I’d wonder if they would rather use the 2023 cap on newer in-their-prime players at that time after one more offseason of reloading through the draft?
We have ZERO idea what the 2023 cap will look like. Why? Because that's when the money from the new TV contracts comes into play. Speculation is anywhere from a 20M-40M jump from 2023. OverTheCap is projecting a modest jump of just 18M with the Pats having 111M to play with. So pushing 10-20 millon into 2023 really isn't going to hurt anything.
- JC certainly played like a top tier QB for much of the year. But they also stopped playing man coverage as much toward the end, and JC had his worst game against Buffalo. Maybe the lack of man coverage was the lack of any capable CBs once Jones was out and Mills went on COVID. Plus the Dugger injury impacting the entire secondary. If that’s the case, then great. I just wonder if Bill didn’t fully trust JC, and if his Buffalo game only validated that lack of trust?
- As you note, they do have a lot of holes. Maybe Bill thinks someone is undervalued and improperly utilized now in FA. Big thing is I think Bill wants to ensure he doesn’t have any holes on the roster, rather than maximizing the top tier talent at certain positions. Meaning, he’d like JC, but given the choice he’d rather sign 2 cheap CBs and a cheap LB than just JC, to ensure teams don’t salivate and target players like Ross, Bryant, and Williams when they’re out there.
Just my opinion though. As I said, your argument is very sound. It all comes down to Bill’s view of Jackson’s abilities versus other alternatives. I hope you’re right.
We both know that Bill doesn't play "maybes". Take a look at the CBs available who are in the same age as Jackson.
Kevin King, Chavarius Ward, Desmond King, Chandon Sullivan, Mike Hughes, Sidney Jones, Tre Herndon, Levi Wallace, Vernon Hargraves, Donte Jackson, Eli Apple, Fabian Moreau, Carlton Davis, Artie Burns, Anthony Averrett, DJ Reed.
Looking at PFF, some of them seem like OK downgrades, but when you look at their ACTUAL numbers, you realize just how much of a downgrade they are..
Carlton Davis is going to be looking for big bucks. So is Ward. Eli Apple is a headcase.
Also, the one that Bill didn't have a number one CB in 2009 and tried to go the route of "fill-ins" it didn't work out so well. It's what led to the drafting of McCourty..
