Patriots 2022 Offseason Thread

As I understand it, McCourty's deal will void and the full cap hit will occur next year unless they can extend him before the new league year begins. There are no other maneuvers that can be done to spread out the dead money.

If McCourty does agree to an extension before the new league year, his cap hit will still be close to the current projection, certainly closer than projecting his 2022 cap at $0 or $2.15m or whatever. We obviously can't know exactly what an extension will cost, so it makes sense to use this as the placeholder until/if an extension is reached.

Hopefully they extend him and his 2022 cap is close to what the dead money would be, otherwise add another big hole to fill without gaining any cap flexibility for next year. Either way, a McCourty extension won't be free, if he doesn't get real money he'll leave or retire.

The only problem with this is then you never have talent in the pipeline. They always draft guys with the intent on delayed gratification - they need to do the same at the WR position to get a legitimate player there.

They didn’t have Jonnu running routes, kinda hard to produce receptions and yards if you’re not running routes

They also didn’t go 2 TE nearly as often as I thought they would

So whether one finds Miguel's number useful or not, it is A projection that is defendable. If someone prefers other numbers out there, fine.

But, for this post, his # serves as the starting point for some of the comments he's made in the 2 "offseason" podcasts he's done so far (1 w/Phil Perry and 1 w/Christopher Price). Some of the highlights across the 2:

1. Thinks they will likely want/need to create some 30M in cap space to accomplish their goals
2. Can actually come up with ~48M in space but it would mean walking away from guys like Mason, KVN, J Jones
3. Predicts the "easy way" to create ~16.7M by redoing Judon, Henry, Godchaux and Bailey
4. Thinks a re-worked McCourty deal will likely still put his cap # around the 6.45M so it's a question of whether it's 6.45 with him off the team (dead money) or on it (he didn't get into how the currently projected dead money would ultimately impact things so that's still a bit of a ? - for me anyway). He thinks returning would make more sense and then became distraught when Price presented the idea of B-Flo getting the Giants job and then convincing DMac to come to NYG to help set the tone (though he did say he thought the Giants cap was in awful shape).
5. Cutting Harry would only save 373K. A trade would be more (didn't say how much more in the pod but I think he's got a tweeted image out there that covers it).
6. Says extending Agholor would likely save 3.94. Cutting him would save 4.1M. So not much of a difference there. Price DID ask him about redoing the deal and THEN cutting him. Miguel found it interesting (but I'd think that's not a "create room for Free Agency" move - only the first part would be whereas the 2nd would be more navigating the league year stuff).
7. Actually thinks many of the FAs will return but many would be on minimum, team friendly deals. Seems like the potential returnees that would more significantly impact space would be JC (at least 17M); DMac (again, something around that dead money #); Meyers (4M tender)
8. Bentley was probably the biggest name he predicted would leave via FA. Thinks JB had a good enough year that someone will give him a # that the Pats don't want to match.
9. Doesn't feel NE can both re-sign/tag JC AND get a FA/Traded WR (probably not a surprise to most).

That's probably the highlights of the 2 pods. He has them linked to his TL if folks are interested.

bleacherreport.com/articles/10021518-jahan-dotson-nfl-draft-2022-scouting-report-for-penn-state-wr

I have confidence Dotson is much better than Agholor next year, as long as he's not stupid. He really is one of those taylor made players for our offense. He can play on all three levels, big YAC guy, even a high engery blocker and he can even throw passes lol.

Normally I would worry about his size, yet he's such a good athlete it doesn't matter. He has a massive catch radius and can go up and get 50-50 balls unlike most players his size.

Aaron Fraudgers at it again

If the Dolphins want to make a serious push to be a SB contender, they should trade for Rogers then sign Adams. They have the cap space to do it. Imagine giving Rogers Waddle and Adams? They could cut Parker, and save around 6m, if they didn’t want to pay 8m for a number 3 or they could keep him and have a ridiculous team of weapons when teamed with Gesicki.

If they had not signed Jonnu they could’ve used that money plus created a bit room for an A list WR, then gone with jmei’s plan. Thats really what they should’ve done but since they did not we need to hit in the draft *somewhere* or Bill needs to find some underappreciated guy.

Thats my view.

Trading Meyers gets you an extra pick and $4 million in cap. It's about balancing the roster, adding another guy to be opposite Agholor like Dotson. Yet extra picks so you can also pick up defensive players in the draft.

I mean what's the cost to dump Agholor? It's not going to be some crazy low pick.

Most playoff wins all time:

Patriots: 37
Packers: 36
Steelers: 36
Tom Brady: 35
Cowboys: 35
49ers: 33

That is a good one. I also like the two Hall of Fame careers one. How many players in all of sports can you say that about? I can't think of anyone really.

I think the offense is fine. Its middle of the pack and no thrills, but you can get by with that. The defense needs to be re-done top to bottom. And, I'm probably in the minority, but I say let Jackson go, or tag and trade him. People will point to his 8 INT and say he's an elite corner. But to me, that shows he's not, since QB's keep throwing it at him. An example I'll use is Darrelle Revis. His career high in INT was 6, and in 8 of 11 years had 4 or fewer. QB's were afraid to throw at him and he was a true elite corner. No QB is afraid of Jackson.