Bedard: Union ratifies new CBA with NFL, why that's huge for Patriots-Brady deal; Titans out on TB12?

In a very narrow vote — 1,019 to 959 — NFL players agreed to the new collective bargaining agreement that will usher in a 17-game season (not immediate) and expanded playoffs (for the 2020 season).

"Our members have spoken and the CBA has been ratified," said union president J.C. Tretter. "We pick up a greater share of the revenues, make significant gains to minimum salaries and increase our post-career benefits.

"We understand that not all deals are perfect, and we don't take the gains we wanted, but couldn't get, lightly. We now must unite and move forward as a union."

Said Roger Goodell: "We are pleased that the players have voted to ratify the proposed new CBA, which will provide substantial benefits to all current and retired players, increase jobs, ensure continued progress on player safety, and give our fans more and better football. We appreciate the tireless efforts of the members of the Management Council Executive Committee and the NFLPA leadership, both of whom devoted nearly a year to detailed, good faith negotiations to reach this comprehensive, transformative agreement."

Shortly after the deal was announced, teams were informed the 2020 salary cap will be $198.2 million — about $2 million less than anticipated.

We're still waiting to hear if the new league year and free agency will start on time.

But we do know this: with the new CBA, it is a lot easier for the Patriots to add to their roster — especially when it comes to Tom Brady.

And it might be useful because the Titans are now reportedly out of the Brady sweepstakes:

https://twitter.com/diannaESPN/status/1239221000102969344

Why? Because of something I was the first to write about:

If the CBA vote failed, the NFL would have entered the last year of the CBA — The Final League Year — and teams like the Patriots (and the Saints with Drew Brees — Geez, I wonder why the Saints haven't signed him to a contract yet ... bleh!) would no longer have some of their fancy accounting tricks available to manipulate the cap.

Bringing back the voids

For the Patriots and the Saints, that would include not being able to include voidable dummy years in the contracts of their aging franchise quarterbacks. Both teams used them in their last deals with Brady and Brees, and they might be essential this time around as well.

The voidable years allow a team to pay their player now but spreading out the cap hit for multiple years. For example, when the Patriots renegotiated Brady’s contract last year, they gave him a $20.25 million signing bonus to bring him in line with most of the other quarterbacks. It was part of a three-year contract with the final two years voiding on March 18, so with the bonus prorated, just $6.75 million went on the Patriots’ cap last season. The rest of the $13.5 million is set to hit the Patriots’ 2020 cap if an extension is not worked out before March 18 (now with the new CBA, Brady's cap hit would spread over two seasons if an extension is reached by the start of the new league year).

When it comes to Brady, the Patriots might not have been able to re-sign Brady without a new CBA. Could they do it? Sure, but they basically wouldn’t be able to make any other moves to improve the team.

The Patriots basically have about $30 million in available cap space for this offseason before paying Brady. To compete with other teams with substantial cap space — the Colts, Buccaneers, Broncos, Raiders and Titans are among the possible suitors with over $50 million available — the Patriots would need to have voidable years as part of any deal.

There’s a “report” the Raiders are ready to offer Brady $60 million for two years, probably all of it guaranteed. The Patriots couldn’t match that without pushing the cap hit out for, likely, two years.

With a new CBA, the Patriots could give Brady a $60 million signing bonus on a four-year deal to be in the ballpark and just $15 million would count on the cap for, say, two more years. When the rest ($30 million) hits the cap as the final two years void and Brady rides off into retirement with another Super Bowl win, the Patriots can plan for that (they have only $31.7 million in 2022 cap commitments right now) and the league-wide salary cap will be substantially higher.

If the Patriots wanted to give Brady $60 million over two years without a CBA, they’d basically have to do it with $30 million in salary for each of the next two seasons. That would make Brady’s cap number $43.5 million for next season.

In other words, it ain’t happening. The Colts could easily do it.

"Hi Tom, it's Bill ... what up."

This should make the next phone call between Bill Belichick and Brady interesting. If it's true that the first phone call didn't go well from Brady's perspective — possibly because a reduced one-year deal didn't go over well — Brady will know exactly how Belichick feels about him now.

If it's true Belichick made that offer to Brady, it's very likely that Belichick made it under the rules of the old CBA, meaning no voidable years. Belichick never, ever gets into hypotheticals so that would not be out of character for him. Could Belichick have made two different offers — under the old CBA and new CBA? Sure, but that's just not how he does things and there was really no to because it wouldn't benefit him to give Brady all the information.

Now that the new CBA has passed, Belichick can call Brady now and say, "Look, it's up to you ... we can offer you X before the new league year and still have money over to give you more help. If you go to free agency, they when can only offer you Y. It's up to you."

That could change a lot. Or maybe Brady is gone in any event.

Grateful Dead Cap

Teams that would like to rid themselves of troublesome contracts, they now have the “post-June 1 designation” at their disposal — they did not before the new CBA. It allows a team to dump a bad contract and spread the dead money on it over two seasons. Teams can do that with two players per year, but the team must carry the contract on their cap until June 2 — not usually an option for teams that are close on the cap like the Patriots.

This will free up cap space for teams to release their own players, but it will also create more cap space for others teams to sign free agents as well.

It should also dump a lot more players into free agency as teams look to shed their contract.

The Cardinals could terminate the contract of running back David Johnson now, for example. Without a new CBA, his release would count $16.75 million on this cap this year. If there’s a new CBA, the Cardinals could spread that hit out over two seasons.

If the Giants wanted to release Nate Solder before his $3 million roster bonus is due, he would have $13 million in dead cap without a new CBA but it would be divided over two years if there’s a new CBA.

If you’re a Patriots fan that feels Marcus Cannon is overpaid with his $9.6 million cap hit in 2020, then using the June 1 designation to get younger on the offensive line would basically be a necessity. Without it, the Patriots would have more dead cap than cap savings so his release would make little sense.