Most of the questions I received today on Twitter after it was announced the Patriots released Benjamin Watson dealt with the cap consequences of the move.
Watson's total dead money is $686,469. It consists of:
$600,000 -- in signing bonus proration
$85,294 -- one week salary. Watson practiced with the Patriots last week.
$1,175 -- offseason workout bonus. Watson had attended five workout sessions.
The Patriots freed up $1,973,529 in cap space because they are no longer responsible for:
$1,023,529 -- twelve weeks of salary
$300,000 -- 46-man active roster bonuses
$650,000 -- LTBE (Likely to be Earned) incentives
After Watson's release, I now have them with around $3.7 million in cap space. That is more than enough to account for the following current cap responsibilities:
1. Earned NLTBE (Not Likely to Be Earned) 46-man active roster bonuses. These bonuses are the only NTLBE incentives that hit the current year’s cap when earned. As you can see below, the Patriots could lose $793,750 in cap space if the 7 players are active for every game the rest of the year. To illustrate this, since Julian Edelman was not active for any game in 2017, in 2018 the Patriots lost $31,250 in cap space every Tuesday on the NFLPA public salary cap page.
[table id=373 /]
2. The Patriots are certain to place more players on injured reserve before the end of the regular season. Replacing those players will take up cap space. For example, let us presume the Patriots place another player on IR sometime this week and they then fill his spot on the 53-man roster with a rookie. That rookie will have a cap number of $349,118 as it is very likely that his yearly salary will be the minimum of $495,000.
3. If the Patriots choose to extend a player who is making the minimum salary (Adam Butler, Ted Karras), the extension can only increase that player’s 2019 cap number, since his prorated signing bonus will now be part of his 2019 cap number.
4. Since Antonio Brown filed a grievance on October 4th about his unpaid 2019 salary amount of $750,000 forty percent of that ($300,000) will be subtracted from the Patriots salary cap in the near future. If the Pats win the grievance, they will receive a $300,000 credit on their 2020 salary cap.
SUMMARY
The Patriots have enough cap space for the current roster but not enough if the Patriots acquire a player with a large 2019 cash number. That would require a lot of hoop-jumping, and I have a hard time seeing them doing that. The $1.8 million in cap space the Patriots had before releasing Watson may have been enough to operate the rest of the season. Now the Patriots have more than enough to either extend a current Patriot or trade for a player with a small 2019 cash number.
For example, if the Patriots did want to trade for Stefon Diggs, the following would have to be done to fit his $6,594,853 cap number onto the Patriots salary cap this week (I'm not including a player swap since the Patriots have never done a cap swap like that):
- Extend Devin McCourty by one year (Cap space created: $2,848,235)
- Extend Van Noy (Cap space created: $1,350,000)
- Break-glass option: Convert Hightower's salary (Cap space created: $2,142,353)
Answer: The team would have to first create cap space. As an example, in 2007, Tom Brady converted salary into a signing bonus in order to make room for Randy Moss. Let's continue to use Diggs as an example. The Patriots could create more cap space on the 3rd and then trade for him on the 4th of October. On the 5th they could then restructure his deal.
Answer: Please see my story from last week.
Answer: Yes. The Patriots could have traded for Eifert last week and he would have fit on their cap since his 2019 salary is only $1,000,000. 12/17ths of that is $705,882.
Answer: That is correct. Can not trade a player that is not on your roster.
Answer: Will be stunned if the Patriots do not trade for a player between now and the trade deadline.
Answer: They can carry over any unused cap space into 2020.
Answer: Harry can be activated for the Eagles game that will take place Week 9. If the Patriots waive a player who is ineligible for termination pay to make room on the 53-man roster, that will create cap space for the Patriots as the Patriots will no longer have to pay that player nine weeks salary.
Answer: Yes but I doubt he will. If the Patriots wanted to lower his cap number they could have simply redone his deal and then activate him.
Answer: $5 million. It consists of:
$4,500,000 - signing bonus proration of his $9,000,000 signing bonus
$250,000 - signing bonus proration of his $500,000 46-man roster bonuses. Because Brown's deal was signed after the start of the regular season, his roster bonuses were treated like a signing bonus.
$125,000 - two weeks salary
$125,000 - termination pay
Answer: Yes, they can. Ever since 2018, the trading of players on IR is allowed.
Answer: Yes, they can.
Answer: If Rob Gronkowski 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 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:
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The 75 players include 16 of 22 SB LIII starters, 29 of 53 SB LIII active players, and 3 of 13 players who were on IR/NFI.