Miguel's musings: Thoughts on Wynn's deal, what might be holding up Michel, and other cap updates

A few thoughts on some cap issues/situations for the Patriots and their players.



1.) I've learned the total fully guaranteed amount of Isaiah Wynn's 2021 salary is $1,938,248. His 2021 salary is $2,040,261. Therefore, just over 95 percent of his 2021 salary and 99.11 percent of his rookie deal is fully guaranteed. As you can see below, after accounting for the Top 51 rule, there will not be a point in time during Wynn's deal that it will not cost the Patriots cap space if they release him. The $102,013 cap savings shown below is before accounting for the Top 51 rule where a player will replace Wynn on the Top 51 list.



Why leave $102,013 unguaranteed? My educated guess is since -- as Over The Cap's Jason Fitzgerald recently noted on Twitter -- the number of rookies with fully guaranteed deals has been increasing by one player each year (2016 - 21; 2017 - 22; 2018 - 23), the Patriots didn't want to be the team to increase the number by two.

2. We've learned a plausible explanation for the "delay" in signing running back Sony Michel to his rookie deal. ProFootballTalk.com's Mike Florio reported the low fully guaranteed amount in Rashaad Penny's fourth year has caused a delay in reaching deals with the players selected around him.

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As you can see from the above two tables, Penny has been the only player drafted in the first round to have a smaller percentage of their fourth-year salary fully guaranteed when compared to the amount received for the player drafted in the same slot in the 2017 draft.

Michel's 2021 salary will be $1,792,731. It appears that the "delay" in signing him is over what percentage of his 2021 salary will be fully guaranteed. Will it be 20.04 percent, like Lamar Jackson? Or 19.97 percent, like Reuben Foster? My guess is that it will be 23 percent. What's yours?

3. My current salary cap space number for the Patriots is $10,019,148. If no transactions affecting the Patriots salary cap space number occur before Michel signs, the Patriots salary cap space number after Michel signs will be $8,898,840.

4. There are nine Patriots who have or will have their 2018 salary fully guaranteed. They are:

Tom Brady
Stephon Gilmore
Dont'a Hightower
Marcus Cannon
Julian Edelman
Kyle Van Noy
Danny Shelton
Isaiah Wynn
Sony Michel

What does this mean cap-wise? That there will be very little, if any, cap savings, by releasing any of the nine above players.

5. With his extension, Joe Cardona joins Aaron Brewer as the only long-snappers with 46-man active roster bonuses.

6. When Jason King re-signed with the Patriots on May 18, they gave him a $1,000 signing bonus. I can't recall that ever happening with a released first-year player before during the Bill Belichick era. King is now the only former member of the Patriots 2017 practice squad to have received a signing bonus.

7. Last week we heard about a hypothetical trade (the Patriots' Shaq Mason for the Seahawks' Earl Thomas). I totally understand trading Mason if you don't believe you can not sign him to an extension. What I don't get is trading him for a player who will be as difficult if not more difficult to sign to a long-term deal. During the ESPN exercise, Thomas' representatives demanded to "make $32 million over the next two years." Zack Martin, the highest paid right guard, will be making $32 million during the first two years of his recent extension. If you are going to agree to Thomas' demands, I much rather pay Mason, the younger player, that amount of money.

8. One more note on the Patriots' guards: Left guard Joe Thuney earned his Proven Performance Escalator for the 2019 season, which bumps his base salary from $720,000 to at least $2,002,400. I'm not predicting that Thuney will be traded, but if he is dealt, the jump in salary might have something to do with it.

9. The Patriots have:

54 players signed for the 2019 season with a total cap commitment of $164,410,794
31 players signed for the 2020 season with a total cap commitment of $83,011,249
12 players signed for the 2021 season with a total cap commitment of $35,901,217
1 player (Cardona) signed for the 2022 season with a total cap commitment of $1,210,000

Have a question for a future PatsCap mailbag? You can send those to him at any time via email (patscap@bostonsportsjournal.com), or you can Tweet them to him here.