Players Who Could See Extensions/New Contracts: DT Kyle Love

Restricted Free Agent in 2013

Kyle Love is currently operating under an exclusive rights free agent tender, which in concept draws similarities to the franchise tag or a restricted free agent tender, but is worth significantly less, $540,000 to be precise. Under this contract, no other teams are allowed to negotiate with Love and so the Patriots are not in a rush to extend him this offseason. But I would expect him to have a deal locking him up for years to come before the end of the season.

Youth along the defensive line is a valuable commodity and Love is definitely the most promising of the Patriots several young defensive tackles. Ron Brace, a second round pick in the 2009 draft, has struggled to see the field, is on the roster bubble and, so far, has largely been considered a bust; whereas Myron Pryor, a sixth round pick in the same draft, has shown flashes of brilliance, but cannot stay healthy enough to contribute consistently.

Love started 13 of the 16 regular season games last season at defensive tackle next to Vince Wilfork. He finished with 33 total tackles and 3 sacks.

Proposed Long-Term Contract: $10.5M/4 years, $3M guaranteed
Possible Restricted Free Agent Tender: First round: $2.7M, Second Round: $1.9M

Players Who Could See Extensions/New Contracts: WR/PR Julian Edelman

 Source: Nick Laham/Getty Images North America

Unrestricted Free Agent in 2013


I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating, Julian Edelman has been one of my favorite Patriots players for a few reasons. To start, he embodies the "do your job" mantra of Belichick, no more evident than this past year when he channeled his inner Troy Brown and made significant contributions in all three phases of the game: offense (wide receiver), defense (slot cornerback), and special teams (punt returner). But what really does it for me, is his complete immersion into the other Boston sports. ESPNBoston's Patriots page has a twitter feed with several players, including Edelman, and I am always pleasantly surprised with how genuinely interested he is the other teams.

Now his love of the other Boston sports teams has absolutely nothing to do with his contract situation, but his embodiment of Belichick's mantra does. Edelman has not particularly impressed as a receiver, 11 receptions for 120 yards over the past two years, after his promising rookie season, 37 receptions for 359 yards. This is mostly due to two factors: he is backing up the best slot receiver in football, Wes Welker, who has shown to be incredibly durable considering the vicious hits he takes in the middle of the field; and after his rookie season the Patriots drafted two tight ends, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez, whose significant play in the slot have limited Edelman's ability to get on the field. This past season he only played 13.3% of the offensive snaps, according to Mike Reiss of ESPN. Even though his statistics are not impressive, Welker's contract situation is still up in the air and it is definitely beneficial having someone on the team who Brady trusts and has shown he can step into Welker's shoes and fill them out nicely (see playoff game versus the Ravens in 2009).

Edelman took over returning punts from Welker in 2010 and since then he has been slightly above average; he ranked 13th in the league this past season with an average of 10.3 yards per return, and took one to the house against Kansas City. He doesn't make special teams units afraid like Devin Hester, but he is a solid contributor.

Finally, if all goes well Edelman should never take another snap on defense. Even after Troy Brown's impressive stint at defensive back in the 2004 championship season, he was not called upon again. Still this does add to his value slightly in that it proves he is a team player and, although this sounds cliche, he is a "football player." By that I mean he loves the game and will do anything that is asked of him, a trait the Patriots covet.

Proposed Contract: $3.7M/3 years, $800k guaranteed
This contract is fairly similar to the one just offered to Matthew Slater. Slater's is a bit higher, but I gave him that nod as he is the captain of the special teams unit and is one of the best special teams coverage players in the NFL (3rd in special teams tackles). Edelman does many things above average, but nothing outstanding. He is not irreplaceable, but he provides definite value, including leverage against Welker. This is cap friendly deal for the Patriots as his cap hit is never larger than $1.4M, yet Edelman makes more than twice what he has over the past four years.

Players Who Could See Extensions/New Contracts: CB/S Sterling Moore

AP Photo/Winslow Townson

Exclusive Rights Free Agent in 2013


Sterling Moore is most well known among Patriots fans for his controversial, yet spectacular, play in the endzone against Lee Evans at the end of the AFC Championship game. It is difficult to evaluate Sterling Moore's play because he wasn't on the field much for the Patriots. Due to the multiple injuries in the defensive backfield last year, the Patriots were constantly shuffling people around, particularly at safety. Sterling, along with Devin McCourty, Matthew Slater, and Sergio Brown all took snaps at Chung's FS spot, while Antwan Molden, Julian Edelman, and Sterling again took over the corner position several time. Moore really started to come into favor towards the end of the season and in the playoffs. He had 8 passes defended, including 2 interceptions, in the last 4 games (including 3 playoff games).

He does not have great size, 5'10", and is best suited in the slot backing up Arrington with the flexibility to play safety. Moore is not a lock to make the roster and needs to continue to produce on the field to stick around, but he has shown promise and he is a young player who the Patriots can keep for little to no financial risk.

Exclusive Rights Tender: $555k

Proposed Contract: $1.9M/2 years, $500k guaranteed, $1M in escalators
If Sterling is able to stay on the team this upcoming season, he is almost guaranteed to receive the exclusive rights tender. The question is whether or not he receives an extension before the start of the 2013 season, or if he plays under the tender and becomes a restricted free agent for 2014. I based this proposed contract almost exclusively on the one Kyle Arrington signed before the 2010 season, as I see many similarities in their situation.

Players Who Could See Extensions/New Contracts: CB Kyle Arrington

Unrestricted Free Agent in 2013
Kyle Arrington is in an interesting place from a contract perspective. On the one hand, he was one of the few bright spots in New England's secondary this past season. He was a sure tackler, placing second on the team in total tackles with 88, including 66 solo, and was 9th best among all defensive backs in broken tackle rate (source,  Patrick Chung was 7th). He was the teams best pass defender, leading the league with 7 interceptions and the team with 15 passes defended. 


On the other hand, coming into the season Arrington was expected to be fourth on the Patriots depth chart at cornerback behind Devin McCourty, Leigh Bodden, and Ras-I Dowling. Unfortunately, due to the regressed play from Devin McCourty, Leigh Bodden being cut, and the season ending injury to Ras-I Dowling, Arrington was forced into a starting role in the secondary. While he performed adequately this past season, he has not done it consistently. He was a significant liability two years ago, and if Ras-I Dowling comes back healthy this year, he is likely to usurp Arrington as the starter.


This then leads to the question, do the Patriots pay him starter money or not. The Patriots tend to be particularly frugal at the cornerback position; and as last year showed they're not afraid give significant reps to players from the scrap heap or even offense. (see: Antwan Molden, Sterling Moore, Julian Edelman, Matthew Slater) Arrington fits better in the slot as his smaller size (5'10") can be a liability against bigger receivers. Alfonzo Dennard, a 7th round draft pick, has the skills to compete for the starting slot job, but will likely be expected to add depth instead.


Finally, not to be disregarded Arrington is a consistent and solid contributor on special teams.


Proposed New Contract: $6.5M/2 years, $2M guaranteed, $1.5M in escalators
To quickly clarify this contract, I imagine Arrington receiving a $2M signing bonus (the guaranteed amount), a $2M base salary in 2013 and $2.5M in 2014, with the possibility of both of those salary numbers increasing (the $1.5M in escalators) based on incentives such as play time, being voted to the Pro Bowl, and/or getting a certain number of interceptions.

Ultimately, the value of this contract and whether Arrington signs it is going to depend heavily on two things: his play this upcoming season, and Ras-I Dowling's health. If the Ras-I Dowling stays healthy and plays well,  I would not be surprised to see Kyle Arrington walk in free agency. I think the Patriots would have more leverage in that situation and they would try to get away with underpaying him. They have replacement options in Alfonzo Dennard and Sterling Moore and can address his leaving in free agency or the draft.

However, if Dowling continues to have health issues and/or Moore and Dennard are unable to contribute, the Patriots may have to sweeten the deal to keep him around.

Players Who Could See Extensions/New Contracts: RT Sebastian Vollmer

Colin Read/Icon SMI

Unrestricted Free Agent in 2013

Seabass is the anticipated starting right offensive tackle going into the 2012 season. That is, if he is healthy. Also drafted in the second round of the 2009 draft, Vollmer was a pick considered to have a lot of upside, but who was a very raw talent. Vollmer immigrated from Germany to play at the University of Houston for four years. After being drafted, he has spent most his time on the right side, although he did fill in for the injured Matt Light several times at left tackle. In 2010, Vollmer started every game at right tackle and earned second team All-Pro, but was stiffed from the Pro Bowl due to the lack of publicity at the spot. Vollmer continued to show his All-Pro caliber play, but was sidelined for a majority of the 2011 season with a back and foot injury. Due to his late entry into college in America, he is older compared to his draft class.  He will be 28 entering the season, while most draft picks from 2009 will be 24-25.

Proposed Contract: $30M/5 year, $8M guaranteed
This locks up Vollmer for most likely the rest of his career and his average salary of $6M/year makes him one of the better paid right tackles in the league. However, I think this would be a complex contract due to Vollmer's significant injury history. First off, I envision this would be a back loaded contract so a significant chunk of the money would be in the last two years and the Patriots could cut him earlier leaving a lot of money still on the table. Second, the guaranteed money is low compared to the total value of the contract, but this could be balanced with an option bonus in 2015. In other words, if Vollmer is healthy and plays well through the 2012-2014 seasons, he would get an immediate roster bonus which would be cap friendly to the Patriots, but reward Vollmer in the short term for his play.

Year:	Salary:	Signing Bonus:	Option Bonus:	Other Bonus:	Salary Cap:
2013	$900,000.00	$1,600,000.00	$0.00	$100,000.00	$2,600,000.00
2014	$1,400,000.00	$1,600,000.00	$0.00	$100,000.00	$3,100,000.00
2015	$2,000,000.00	$1,600,000.00	$2,666,666.67	$100,000.00	$6,366,666.67
2016	$4,000,000.00	$1,600,000.00	$2,666,666.67	$100,000.00	$8,366,666.67
2017	$5,000,000.00	$1,600,000.00	$2,666,666.67	$100,000.00	$9,366,666.67
				Total:	$29,800,000.00

Signing Bonus: $8M 

Option Bonus: $8M  (2015)

Players Who Could See Extensions/New Contracts: S Patrick Chung

 Andy Lyons/Getty Images North America

Unrestricted Free Agent in 2013

Chung was drafted by the Patriots in the second round in 2009. He is entering the final year of his rookie contract and is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent at the conclusion of the 2012 season. The Patriots defense, their pass defense in particular, was historically terrible this pass season, but Patrick Chung was one of the few bright spots in the secondary. The Patriots defense noticeably suffered when Chung missed 8 games this past season. As shown below, the defense gave up touchdowns twice as often when he was off the field compared to when he was on it. Obviously, not all of those statistics can be attributed to Chung's absence, Brandon Spikes missed the same 8 games and he is also an essential cog to the defense, particularly the run game.

	On Field	Off Field
Plays	661	553
Yds per att	7.7	9.8
Att per TD	25.5	10.0
Rush per TD	36.4	18.8
Source:    ESPN

Proposed Contract: $12.5M/3 year, $2.5M guaranteed

An average of $4.2M/year (similar money to Ryan Clark of the Steelers and Reggie Nelson of the Bengals) solidifies Chung as the starter for the next few years, but not quite at the level of Pro Bowl safeties. I limited the length of the contract due to Chung's difficulties with injuries the past two seasons. This just as easily could be a 4-5 year contract with a clause for a cheaper buyout should he get injured, or a team option for more years with a roster bonus.

Players Who Could See Extensions/New Contracts: Preview

I was originally going to do these all as one post, but they were a little longer than I anticipated so I am breaking them up. To start us off, I wanted to mention the state of the cap for both the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

As the salary cap page shows the Patriots are doing well with over $10M in cap space with no major signings on the horizon. Any deals with players already on the roster would be expected to either lessen there cap hit for this year (i.e. a possible Welker deal), or add only a small increase (i.e. the Gronk deal).

In 2013, however, the cap situation is very different. First of all, nearly 40 players on the roster are not signed after 2012, while a significant number of them are recent free agent signings that aren't necessarily likely to make the 53 man roster, there are quite a few key players that have not been extended including: Welker, Patrick Chung, Kyle Love, Sebastian Vollmer, etc.  Also, Tom Brady's cap hit in 2013 is gigantic, a whopping $21.8M. This is over one sixth of the expected cap space next year. No player on the 2012 Patriots has a cap hit larger than $10M; Welker tops that list with his franchise tag at $9.5M. While a restructure or extension for Brady to reduce this huge number is not only possible, it is likely, I am going to be operating under the assumption that his contract will not be amended.

As I mentioned several key players are going to be free agents at the end of this season. I am going to present possible contracts that would seem reasonable to me. I will be trying to take into account the players skill, comparable contracts around the league, the positional depth, and other factors such as leadership and injury history. So far I have plans for: Patrick Chung, Sebastian Vollmer, Kyle Love, Julian Edelman, Kyle Arrington, Sterling Moore, Aaron Hernandez and Wes Welker. I'll be posting these throughout the week.

TE Rob Gronkowski is signed to an extension

Before I had the chance to speculate what the Patriots would do about the contract situation of their two amazing tight ends, they answered my question. TE Gronkowski was signed to an extension this morning. Details are still unknown, but because of the contract Green Bay gave TE Jermichael Finley this offseason, it is expected to be in the $9-10M range. I will post updates as they are reported.

Update: According to Adam Schefter, the deal is a 6 year extension worth $54M. This deal makes him the highest paid tight end in the NFL by a lot. The next closest salary is San Francisco's Vernon Davis' who signed a 6 year/$42.7M in 2010.

Update 2: I misunderstood the length of this deal. Effectively, this is actually an 8 year contract, as it is adding 6 years to the 2 years Gronk still has on his rookie contract. Therefore, this deal is more accurately described as $55.1M/8 year. This averages out to $6.9M/year, which ranks him 5th highest salary of NFL tight ends behind: Vernon Davis, Mercedes Lewis, Tony Gonzalez, and Jermichael Finley.

Source: PFT

Update 3: I added estimates for Gronkowski's new contract, courtesy of spotrac.com, to the salary cap page. In the immediate future, this seems like a win-win for both sides. Gronkowski looked to be criminally underpaid this year before this extension with a salary of $490k. With a signing bonus of $8M he gets money in his pocket now, along with a slight raise for the next two years at around $600k. After that, however, he gets a huge pay bump to about $4M. His salary for the next three years are all guaranteed so he has some insurance should he get injured.

Meanwhile, the Patriots lock-in their most important offensive player not named Tom Brady until nearly the end of the decade. Say what you want about Welker's importance on third down or Hernandez's versatility; no one makes the Patriots' offense run better than Gronk. He is obviously an elite pass catching tight end with his NFL record 1,327 yards on 90 receptions in 2011. He particularly shines in the red zone with his league-leading 17 TD receptions last year. But even more than that, he is a great blocking tight end (run or pass) who isn't afraid to hit someone in the mouth. In the AFC Championship, he blasted the Defensive Player of the Year, Terrell Suggs (right side), and then continued on to his route as if nothing happened. He allows the Patriots to run their offense so much more effectively because they can exploit match ups everywhere. If the defense beefs up to play the run, they split Gronk and Hernandez out wide for a 4 or 5 wide receiver set. If they play in a nickel or a dime, they bring Gronk and Hernandez inside and run it straight up the gut. If they double Gronk with bracket coverage, it allows other players, like Hernandez and Welker to win one-on-one battles. Looking back at the 2011 season, if there was a game where his stats were low, either Welker or Hernandez had explosive games; most notably @Oakland (Welker 9 rec, 158 yard, 1TD) and @Denver (Hernandez 9 rec, 129 yards, 1TD). Fans like to use the word beast a lot when describing a dominant player and it seems cliche, but I honestly don't know what other word describes Gronk better. In the game against the Redskins this past year, he had two of my favorite plays ever. (I apologize for the music, I couldn't find a highlight without any)

On top of all of the statistics that he is known for, Gronkowski also brings something else to the team, and to the locker room specifically. He is a fun-loving guy, in the purest sense. He is a goofball. He is the antithesis to Brady and Belichick, but that is a good thing. Matt Light was known for being a bit of a joker in the locker room too, and both Light and Gronk were seen after the Super Bowl loss dancing around foolishly. They were both able to recognize what an amazing accomplishment it was to even reach the Super Bowl and how lucky their lives have been. He is a player who works hard and earns his respect, but doesn't take life too seriously.

But what did the Patriots give up in this contract? First off, they guaranteed Gronkowski $18M, including the $8M signing bonus, when they currently were not pressed to sign him to an extension. He had two more years, plus he would have been a restricted free agent. Second, Gronkowski has seemed slightly susceptible to injuries. He sat out his junior year at Arizona because of a back injury, and in the AFC Championship game he suffered a high ankle sprain that limited his effectiveness in the Super Bowl and required surgery this offseason. So this contract is not free of risk on the Patriots side.

However, if Gronkowski does stay healthy and continues to perform at this high level, the Patriots will have orchestrated a huge amount of savings for the later part of this deal. If in 2016, they exercise a $10M roster bonus, they will have Rob under contract until he is 31. Over those last four years, his average cap hit will be  about $6.5M, which is not to say is a small amount of money, but had he hit the open market that number could easily have been $9-11M. The Vince Wilfork/Richard Seymour situation in 2009 is a stark counter-example to handling his contract this early. The Patriots forced both dominant defensive linemen into playing out contracts they had grossly exceeded. When it came time to re-sign them to larger contracts, they didn't have the space for both and were forced to ship Seymour off to the Raiders. While the Patriots turned the first round pick they got out of that deal into now starting LT Nate Solder, not rewarding both lineman forced them to change the defense from a 3-4 to a 4-3 because they didn't have the personnel to run a 3 man front. Trying to rebuild on the fly has been one of the many reasons why the Patriots' defense has been so porous these past few years.  Now they have significantly more leverage over Hernandez when it comes time to re-sign him.

So by investing now, and taking on the risk of an injury, the Patriots are able to get an elite offensive threat for a significantly discounted price in his prime years. In my opinion there are two less quantitative benefits from this contract. First, it keeps Gronkowski and other players in the locker room happy. He was rewarded for his elite play on the field and more importantly his potential to keep performing at that elite level; this is an action the Patriots aren't always known for, see the Welker contract situation. Second, it removes a significant amount of uncertainty about the Patriots offense. They can now draft/sign players that specifically compliment Gronkowski for years to come. As I said, they added leverage to Hernandez's contract talks, and probably Welker's too.

Overall, I am very happy about this extension. I look forward to watching Gronk spike the shit out of the ball every touchdown for years to come. As for what to look forward to, I am working on a post about other possible extensions (i.e. Aaron Hernandez, Patrick Chung, Wes Welker, and Sebastian Vollmer) the Patriots may be working on this offseason taking into account their cap space in 2013 and beyond.