1. On Sunday, ESPN's Field Yates broke the news the Patriots and Tom Brady reached an extension.
Before the restructure, Brady's 2019 cap number was $27,000,000. It consisted of:
-- $14,000,000 salary
-- $7,000,000 signing bonus proration from 2016 $28 million signing bonus
-- $5,000,000 signing bonus proration from 2018 $10 million signing bonus
-- $1,000,000 46-man roster bonuses ($62,500 per game)
After Brady's extension it is now $21,500,000. It consists of:
-- $1,750,000 salary (August 7, 2019 7:30 PM update - I learned this salary is fully guaranteed)
-- $1,000,000 46-man roster bonuses ($62,500 per game)
-- $7,000,000 signing bonus proration from 2016 $28 million signing bonus
-- $5,000,000 signing bonus proration from 2018 $10 million signing bonus
-- $6,750,000 signing bonus proration from 2019 $20.25 million signing bonus
Brady's 2020 cap number is $36,750,000. It consists of:
-- $30,000,000 salary
-- $6,750,000 signing bonus proration from 2019 $20.25 million signing bonus
Brady's 2021 cap number is $38,750,000. It consists of:
-- $32,000,000 salary
-- $6,750,000 signing bonus proration from 2019 $20.25 million signing bonus
Field also reported the deal contained two voidable years (2020 and 2021). Adding the two voidable years to Brady's deal allows the Patriot to prorate his signing bonus over three years (2019/2020/2021). If the Patriots and Brady do not restructure his deal by the start of the 2020 League Year (4 p.m. March 18), the 2021 proration of Brady's signing bonus will then hit the Patriots salary cap at that time and Brady will become an unrestricted free agent. NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported Brady's deal contains a provision prohibiting the Patriots from placing either the franchise or transition tag on him. This is the second time during the Bill Belichick era the Patriots have used the voidable year mechanism. Lawyer Milloy's 2000 extension was the first.
Answering some logical follow-up questions:
Question: Why did Brady agree to the extension?
Answer: Because Brady was due to receive $15 million in cash in 2019. That $15 million in cash tied Brady with Aaron Rodgers for the least amount of cash to be earned by a veteran starting quarterback. Brady now gets $23 million in cash this year which ties Drew Brees for the sixth-highest amount. It can't be a coincidence that the two oldest starting quarterbacks are now going to earn the same amount of cash in 2019. Russell Wilson, Ben Roethlisberger, Nick Foles, Kirk Cousins, and Kyler Murray are the five quarterbacks who will receive more cash than Brady and Brees. Don Yee, Brady's agent, can now say his client by having a $35 million new money APY is tied with Wilson for the highest-paid player in the league by the new money metric.
Answer: To increase their 2019 salary cap space, to increase Brady's 2019 cash intake while not using all of their cap space, to buy them another year to evaluate both Brady and Jarrett Stidham, to avoid tagging their best player ever, to be able to use the franchise tag on someone else and to defer having Brady taking a large percentage of their adjusted cap number for a year. Because of the Aaron Hernandez situation and 2020 possibly being the last season under the CBA, the Patriots' 2020 adjusted cap number could be significantly higher than its 2019 number of $197 million. The higher it is, the easier it is to take a large cap number. Because injuries and incentives play such a large part in determining each team's adjusted cap number it is impossible to predict with any certainty what the Patriots 2020 adjusted cap number will be. My current guess is it will be in the range somewhere between $205 million and $210 million.
Answer: It would lower his 2020 cap number from $36.75 million to $13.5 million while also lowering his 2021 cap number from $38.75 million to zero.
Answer: This analysis presumes Brady's 2019 play leaves him among the top quarterbacks in the league. This year we saw the Patriots build the leading Super Bowl contender with Brady taking up 13.7% of their adjusted cap number ($197,014,098) for most of the 2019 League Year. If in 2020 the Patriots adjusted cap number is $205 million, 13.7% of that number would be $28 million. Therefore, I see the Patriots lowering Brady's cap number to no more than $28 million as part of a one-year extension. The $28 million would consist of:
Answer: From Article 12, Section 8 of the CBA: “The contract of a Veteran Player may not be renegotiated to increase the Salary to be paid to the player during the original terms of the contract for a period of twelve months after the player’s most recent contract renegotiation. The first renegotiation of a Veteran Player Contract, however, may take place at any time.” I bolded the word salary to highlight this is an instance in the CBA where the salary actually means cap number. As long as Brady's new 2020 cap number is less than $36.75 million a restructure/extension would be permissible anytime in 2020.
Answer: Because Brady has 19 accrued seasons the highest compensatory pick the Patriots could receive is a fifth-round pick - the highest for a player with ten or more accrued seasons.
Answer: $35 million. It would have consisted of:
Answer: I fully expect the Patriots to trade for a player.
- The Colts' Jack Doyle whose Patriots 2019 cap number would be $5,337,500.
- The Vikings' Laquon Treadwell whose cap number would be $1,804,770
- The Cardinals' Charles Clay whose cap number would be $1,556,250
- The Texans' Darren Fells whose cap number would be $1,400,000.
- The Browns' Seth Devalve whose cap number would be $720,000
- The Falcons' Logan Paulsen whose cap number would be $645,000. $110,000 of Paulsen's salary is fully guaranteed.
- The salaries of players 52 and 53 -- $990,000
- The salaries of the 11-man practice squad -- $1,750,000
- Cushion for NLTBE 46-man active roster bonuses -- $1,500,000
- Josh Gordon's salary -- Since he is indefinitely suspended Gordon's salary currently counts zero against the Patriots salary cap. Let's say for the sake of this exercise, Gordon is suspended for four games. His cap number would increase to 13/17ths of $2,025,000 or $1,548,529.
- Injuries -- Teams like to have three to five million in reserve to replace players who go on the various reserve lists.
- Extensions -- The Patriots have typically extended a player or two during the regular season. Those extensions have usually increased the player's cap number.
Answer: If traded to the Patriots Williams' cap number would be $11,053,125. The Patriots now have $12,990,353 in cap space. $12,990,353 minus $11,053,125 plus $720,000 (the salary of the player Williams displaces from the Top 51 list) equals $2,657,228. Therefore, the Patriots now have the cap space to take on Trent Williams' deal and then reach an extension with him that would lower his 2019 salary.
Answer: Have always thought the Patriots would trade a player or two during the preseason. Those players are currently playing a position (cornerback, safety, linebacker, defensive tackle) where the Patriots are currently deep. Now having $13 million in cap space widens the spectrum of players the Patriots can now acquire in a trade.
Answer: I am not worried about Brady being a Patriot for life. Since my worrying about it is not going to change what happens, I see no point to worrying about it. I feel badly for those who will worry about it since the time between the Super Bowl (February 2nd) and the start of the 2020 League Year (March 18th) will be longer than usual.
Answer: That Brady's new money total is $85 million. $85 million divided by three is $28.3 million. Since Brady's 2020/2021 salaries are just placeholders, the Patriots and Brady could have agreed to any numbers for those years. To end up with $85 million just brings up memories of Super Bowl 51.
Answer: To them, I will point out these two facts.
One - The Patriots ended March with about $17 million in cap space. March is the month in which most, if not all, big-name free agents signed their deals.
Two - The Patriots have been considered a Super Bowl contender, if not the leading, for most of this preseason.
Answer: Yes. I am curious to see if Brady actually receives the signing bonus upfront. In 2013 Brady's $30 million signing bonus was spread out as follows:
- $10 million upfront
- $10 million paid over the seventeen weeks of the 2013 and 2014 seasons
- $5 million paid on February 15, 2014
- $5 million paid on February 15, 2015
Answer: 10.91 percent
Answer: 120 percent of $27 million, or $32,400,000
Answer: $47,400,000 ($15 million in 2019 and $32.4 million). As of now, Brady is scheduled to receive $53 million.
Answer: $86,280,000 (15 million in 2019, $32.4 million in 2020 and $38.88 million in 2021). As of now, Brady is scheduled to receive $85 million.
Answer: Brady lowered his 2019 salary from $14 million to 1.75 million in exchange for receiving a $20.25 million signing bonus. Since the signing bonus is being prorated only one-third of the bonus counts against the 2019 cap whereas the entire $14 million was counting against the 2019 cap.
Answer: If Gronk decides to un-retire during the regular season, his cap number would be $9 million divided by 17 times the number of weeks remaining in the season plus $46,875 times the remaining number of games. As Bedard illustrated in here, the deadline to unretire is Week 13.
Week 1 - $9,609,375
Week 2 - $9,079,963
Week 3 - $8,550,551
Week 4 - $8,021,140
Week 5 – $7,444,853
Week 6 – $6,868,566
Week 7 – $6,292,279
Week 8 – $5,715,993
Week 9 – $5,139,706
Week 10 – $4,610,294
Week 11 – $4,034,007
Week 12 – $3,457,721
Week 13 – $2,881,434
Answer: The two sides are more than willing to go one year at a time.
Answer: That would be a violation, but if Brady were given a one percent ownership share of the Patriots today that $38 million would count against the cap today along with the other components of a cap number. See this piece by Andrew Brandt, a former GM, on the cap treatment of an ownership take.
Answer:
[table id=132 /]
The 91 players include 17 of 22 SB LIII starters, 41 of 53 SB LIII active players, and 6 of 13 players who were on IR/NFI.