Tom Brady agrees to extension through 2021 - but this is now year to year for both sides

Tom Brady has agreed to a two-year contract extension that will, in theory, keep him in a Patriots uniform until he's 44-years old.

However, the agreement between Brady and the Patriots is essentially a year-to-year deal — which was apparent last year at this time — and can be tweaked or ended at any time by either of the two sides after this season

Brady was due to make $15 million in cash but count $27 million against the cap — giving the Patriots the highest QB cap in the league. He will now make $23 million in cash for 2019 and likely lower the team's cap number by about $6 million this season. The $23 million in cash would rank Brady sixth among quarterbacks.

BSJ Analysis

There have been a few leaked reports about the numbers in this contract, but just remember that nothing is official until the contract is approved by the league.

But going by some of the floated numbers, there's some good and bad in this for both sides. Here's why:

https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/1158073982173634561

Here is Miguel's initial run through with these numbers, but I'm not sure they're correct because other reports mentioned voidable years ... which usually means a large signing bonus that has to be prorated and leads to a lot of dead cap if the end of the contract isn't reached.



 

Miguel's numbers have very reasonable signing bonus proration (that's the money that would be dead cap money when the player leaves the team). That doesn't scream voidable years to me.

Miguel's numbers tell me it's pay-as-you-go for the team, which is great for the Patriots but not for Brady (Belichick could move on at any point). Brady would likely want to make Belichick's decision a little more difficult by having to wrestle over the dead cap. In the top numbers, if Belichick decided to move on from Brady, it would cost them $7 million in dead cap for the next two years. That's pretty reasonable. That same dead cap hit would also occur if Brady retired after June 1.

But here's the thing: the Patriots weren't going to allow Brady to carry a $27 million cap this year ... but they're going to be OK with $37 million and $39-plus million in 2021? Something doesn't add up. He would be at least 18 percent of the Patriots' cap in 2020, which is something Robert Kraft never wanted to do.

The way this contract reads, this could be Brady's final season. They'd have to renegotiate next year, and that would be significant and involve more dead money in the future. It's certainly a very interesting structure.

Probably the most important thing about Brady's contract that it will increase the Patriots' cap number:

https://twitter.com/patscap/status/1158087812761214976

Cap space of $13 million is not significant. The Patriots need $5-8 million in cap space for the season for a variety of reasons, including replacing players who go on injured reserve and contract incentives. So, basically, the Patriots have about $5 million available in cap space. They could: a) bring in another player, b) hold that space for Rob Gronkowski, or c) try to extend a player who is entering the final year of their contract.

Notable 2020 Patriots free agents: Devin McCourty, Kyle Van Noy, Jonathan Jones, Jamie Collins, Joe Thuney.

One other interesting nugget: Brady's proposed average per season would be $28.3 million. Jimmy Garoppolo's would be $27 million.

In any event, Brady's contract "drama" — which we told you not to worry about; it would be done in early August — is over for another season. Now we need to wait for the official numbers and really weigh in.