Flowers, Brown and Gostkowski will hit market later this month - what's next for Patriots?

So there will be no tags for the Patriots, which means Trey Flowers, Trent Brown and Stephen Gostkowski will all be available when free agency begins later this month. Let's take a look at all three situations:

This is something we’ve gone around and around on over the last few weeks in our weekly BSJ Q&A’s, but to my mind, I don’t know if Gostkowski was ever really a candidate for the franchise tag. On the surface, whether it was as a stopgap on the way to a negotiated deal or simply a way to keep him in place for another year, he would have been a candidate. But I’d still expect to see him in Foxborough in 2019 regardless — but maybe with a little competition this summer.

The other two? Well, there are a couple of reasons as to why they didn’t get tagged. In the case of Brown — again, something we’ve hit on multiple times over the last few weeks — it’s not so much a referendum on his performance, but the fact New England has a younger and cheaper option waiting in the wings. (At least, theoretically.) Brown was tremendous last season, and exceeded just about everyone’s expectations. But these decisions aren't made in a vacuum, and with Isaiah Wynn and Dante Scarnecchia there, you can understand their thinking. This doesn’t necessarily mean he’s ticketed for anywhere in particular — free agency can be an awful dynamic situation — but basically,,. both Wynn and Scarnecchia are why the Patriots were unwilling to use the $14-million tag on Brown.