Patriots' 2024 Free Agency Thread
- Thread starter Jake Peavy's Demons
- Start date
As long as they’re using cap space it doesn’t matter. Cash spending is more about how they structure signing bonuses.
Sigh.
You certainly implied this year and that the Pats will be active over the next few days because of it.
MY POV is patient teams get rewarded with good deals, whether later in the offseason or mid-season. They're going to spend to the floor regardless over the next three years. I just disagreed with your post that they have to do that this week.
Sure, but structuring signing bonuses is how you spend more money to put together a team under the same cap constraints as everyone else. Again, I'm not advocating for the Saints model, I just don't think they've done enough to use cash to add talent to the team while remaining cap compliant. There were teams last year spending 100 million more cash than the Pats for their 2023 rosters. I think that tends to reflect on the field (unless you have an All-World QB, but then again if you have that piece everything around him matters far less in general).
I also don't think he's worth a 1st, I was just pointing out that the raw catch type stuff is silly, it's pure volume and so offense/team dependent.
I would be interesting in Higgins at less than a 1st not just because I think he's really good, but what he's good at, beating press man, winning at the catch point, forcing DBs to give cushion, winning downfield.
He's the top guard on the market, what did you expect? I wouldn't be surprised to see him gone, guard is one of the few offensive positions that the Patriots probably don't need to be spending a bunch of money.
This is my question though. If they basically always spend up to the salary cap, lower actual cash spending isn't a sign of being CHEAP...it's a sign of maybe not the best cap management. But those are two very, very different criticisms.
If I remember right, the NFL is not a big fan of deals getting "rumored" 2 seconds after the tampering period starts, unlike the NBA they like to at least pretend that people are following the rules.
I dunno, I remember being at lunch 3 years ago when all the huge deals came out (Judon etc.). It was my uncle's funeral, pretty clear recollection.
Looks like we're in on Ridley -
View: https://twitter.com/JFowlerESPN/status/1767220890184319048?s=20
View: https://twitter.com/JFowlerESPN/status/1767220890184319048?s=20
I wish we would have tagged him with the cap space and lack of overall quality of talent out there.
I guess, I just don't think it makes sense, we don't need a 1/20M guard, and if we play him at tackle... he's not anywhere near as good and he'll be pissed. It's just not a good use of resources for where the team is in terms of actual needs.
I think the mistake was letting it get to this point and not getting something done last year. They will have to go out and bring in some additional new talent in FA, and now use draft picks on the O Line.
Not sure there was ever a real chance. He wanted to test the market and thought he was getting top dollar (he still may) even firing his agent. Sometimes keeping a guy early just isn't an option, takes 2 sides to work out extensions.
I wouldn't even have an interest in him with our 2nd this season.
Does he end up better than the receivers left at the start of round 2? Probably. But this draft is heavy with tackles, and getting a really good LT on a rookie contract with the 34th pick feels like way more value than trading that pick for Tee Higgins AND having to cough up a huge contract for a guy that has never produced/been asked to produce like a #1. Not just was his 2023 injury plagued, but he's been hounded by similar injuries throughout his 4 year career. Lots of ankle sprains, lots of hamstring pulls, and his first concussion last season which opens him up to a higher likelihood of them later.
I'd gamble my second rounder for NEXT season on him, as I do think we end up closer to the middle of the 2nd round next season. Otherwise, Id go with a 3+4 or a 3+3 (maybe 2) next season.
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Everyone basically spends up to the salary cap, because teams structure contracts to make sure they are cap-compliant and also cap-floor compliant. The salary cap isn't a good guide to whether a team is cheap or spending lavishly.
Found a handy guide on total cash spending by NFL teams over the last three years (thanks Steelers Depot). The Patriots don't look bad here compared to the rest of the NFL (17th), but note that that makes them the 2nd-lowest cash spending team in the AFC. Didn't realise there was such a strong spending gap between the AFC and NFC.
In terms of longer-term spending, the Patriots have ranked last in the NFL in cash spending over the past 10 years, spending $300M less than the Eagles in that time span. From a Reiss article in January:
I guess I really just don’t get how cash spending works compared with cap hits. You can’t cash spend more than the cap. And since the Pats are always near the cap, how can they actually have spent more cash? I guess by structuring contracts better maybe?
View: https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/1767239702162076121
Maybe, but word is they're still in on Ridley, want to add both. That regime has not been shy about it's willingness to "overpay" 2nd/3rd tier WRs (Kirk, Jones, etc.)
Cash spending is the base salary of the contracts plus bonuses paid out within that league year. So a $50M signing bonus all counts that one year from a cash perspective.
Right. So I can see how cash spending is less than cap spending but low cash spending when the team is at the salary cap doesn’t mean they’re “cheap”, as some claim.
Yeah, but if you're spending to the cap every year, then you're going to be spending 100 percent of your cap space in cash. It's a zero sum game. The only question is over how many years are you going to be spending it. You only get $1 on your cap if you pay a player $1 in cash. Every team that spends to the top of the cap will also be spending 100 percent of the cap in cash. It is just a question of which years it gets attributed to, and the 3 year thing makes sure that you can't keep kicking the can in order to pretend you're spending when you're not.
Conversely, every team that spends to the cap will also be spending exactly 100 percent of the cap on cash spending. Because every dollar you spend will count toward the cap. If it didn't then it would be a cap loophole. Again, it's all just about timing.
Baseball Jones fundamental point is correct. If you spend to the cap, you're spending cash to the cap. You don't take a cap charge unless you spent the money. Now, you may be doing it inefficiently (for example what the Broncos did with Russell Wilson) or hyper efficiently (Tom Brady) but a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. It's just a question of when it hits.
The Patriots will easily spend more than 100 percent of the cap this year. I already gave as an example the cash to sign the number 3 pick. It will be about $28 million in 2024 cash spending, but will only count about $6.5 million against the cap. Similarly, they are going to pay signing bonuses.
Consider a player that gets a $30 million signing bonus on a 5 year deal. That's $30 million in spending in 2024, but only a $6 million cap hit (for the bonus part).
I really don't know what the discussion here is meant to show. If it's that the Patriots are cheap, it's just not correct. You spend over the cap when you're going for it and borrow against future liabilities. You save your cap when you're not competitive so you can spend later.
Here is the easiest way to look at it: Low cash to cap percentage means that a team is not borrowing future cap in order to compete now. High cap to cash spending means that they are borrowing future years' cap space in order to get players paid now. It is hardly surprising that the Patriots are low on cash spending. It's all going to work out. When the 2024 cash spending chart comes out, the Patriots will be over the cap in spending. Unless something really wacky goes wrong.
While I do think he's ultimately a better guard, he's a perfectly suitable starting tackle. He gave up the 5th least amount of pressures of all qualified tackles last season. I don't think thats a true barometer of his skill - he struggles against top end pass rushers and his matchups were pretty light on those this season. Still, he wins the battles he should against the rest of the league, which makes him a consistent starter at RT. Considering the alternatives are overpaying for bad tackles, I'd much rather just overpay Onwenu.
I don't think he's all that good, I know PFF thinks he's pretty good at RT, but they seem like the outlier. I think I fall more on the Brandon Thorn side, where he's just not a good enough pass pro guy to play RT full time at a league average or better level.
The other big thing though.... there have been a LOT of people saying he wants to be a guard, and that goes all the way back to when he was here. A guy who isn't that good at Tackle and who you are forcing to play T under a 1 year deal... not a great situation.
I don't think the alternative is overpaying bad tackles. You have Okorafor who I think is... similar to Onwenu at RT, maybe a little worse, and you have a shot at Jonah Williams who I think is better and more versatile (can play LT).
The best use for cash spending measures is that when someone complains about low cash spending, you know they can be safely ignored.
I am not saying or trying to make the point that the Patriots are cheap. I was surprised to find what the delta was between the highest- (Eagles) and lowest- (Patriots) cash spending teams over 10 years, precisely because of what you outlined - I assumed over such a long period of time, cash numbers and cap numbers would roughly even out since it's a zero sum game and so no teams could even be "cheap" in that sense but it turns out that the delta was $300M. That isn't even mostly a function of recent spending by the Eagles to go for it now - the difference in spending in the last three years between those two teams has only been something like $33M total. Basically it means during the good years, the Patriots spent way less than the Eagles (and got good returns on that), and I found that interesting. No judgement on the Patriots for doing that, since the results obviously bore it out, but the sustainability of that approach in a post-Brady world seems tougher.
From what I've seen and read, you can't fit every team into the "spend when you're going for it / save for later" dichotomy. Andrew Brandt has frequently said that the Packers philosophy is to pay-as-you-go and match cap and cash, for example, and that this was true throughout the Favre and Rodgers years. Pretty sure pay-as-you-go was also Belichick's model, even when the Patriots were going for it. The flip side would be a team like the Saints, which loves pushing the cap hits. What I am curious about is whether the Belichick philosophy towards cap management - which tended to be more pay-as-you-go, matching cap and cash amounts for most years - is still going to be the approach the Patriots use going forward, or going to be more of what many other teams do, which is what you described.
In addition I'm curious about what the "right" philosophy towards cap management should even be in an era of relatively large annual jumps in the cap. A few years ago there were a number of commentators writing about how the Eagles and Rams were in cap hell because of the dead cap hits from the Wentz and Goff contracts, but that doesn't seem to have set either team back very much, so perhaps much as prudence and pay-as-you-go sound like good philosophies it may be that cap spending is more like managing a government budget deficit, where an environment of constantly increasing limits means pay-as-you-go might be overly cautious and detrimental.
Good thoughts. Yeah, I don't know what is ideal. I think you have the key variable. What is the cap going to do? If it's going to jump $15 million a year then it probably requires a different strategy from when it is stagnant. The Patriots had the luxury of Tom Brady always helping them be a pay as you go team. Even when they drew down future years, they always had kind of a safety net.
I think so much of the question is dictated by your QB. If you have cost control, then you sort of have difficulty over spending but if you don't you are more in the Dak/Cowboys spending model.
Wonder what they could have gotten in a tag and trade. I wouldn't want to pay him the tag or the kind of extension these guys are getting, but maybe he had flip value that they missed out on
Maybe they know they're getting Ridley plus a draft pick and it's just a number of bodies thing?
could be. Might also just be doing a vet a solid after nobody would send them a pick for him. I doubt they would assume they'll take a WR though, they probably will but no need to make the roster moves yet before you know. I guess one other option is they want him on the market because they think one of the teams they talked trade with will sign him and take away competition for the mid-tier FAs they'd rather have.
sure, but given their space that's minimal, and they certainly don't need it today.
Yes, they basically added some money into this year when they had tons of cap space to open space last year.... probably what they used on Zeke
True. Some teams like to move on early because it gives player more time.
I do like that new regime is clearly divesting itself if players it feels aren't part of plan.