New England Patriots: Ranking Internal Free Agent Priorities
By Hal Bent
The New England Patriots have plenty of important free agents this offseason. Here is a ranking for the most important ones for them this offseason.
The New England Patriots’ players are into their offseason and relaxing after their historic win in Super Bowl 51. For the front offices and coaching staff, there is much work to do to catch-up to the other teams who are already deep into their free agent and draft preparation.
The Patriots actually have a large amount of salary cap space heading into the 2017 offseason. With the salary cap expected to be around $173,000,000, the Patriots have flexibility and approximately $61,000,000 in cap space (all salary cap information from http://overthecap.com/ unless otherwise noted).
Of course, the Patriots have a huge group of pending free agents. There are a number of players who contributed to the Super Bowl championship on both sides of the ball and special teams. Some may be high priority, some may be low priority; Some may want to stay, some may want to leave; some are unrestricted, restricted, and exclusive rights.
Reading the tea leaves with Bill Belichick and free agency is always a foggy proposition at best. The team builds primarily through the draft and trades, not free agency. However, impact players who come up from the draft are usually taken care of internally.
If there is a premium to be paid, the Bill Belichick New England Patriots will extend a home-grown player who is willing to take less than top dollar. Those who do not want to play ball are traded in advance (Richard Seymour, Chandler Jones, Jamie Collins, Lawyer Milloy, Mike Vrabel, Deion Branch and more) or allowed to leave in free agency (Wes Welker, Adam Vinatieri, Ty Law, David Givens, Willie McGinest, Asante Samuel, Eugene Wilson and many more).
That said, there is no loss in free agency that would devastate the Patriots as long as Bill Belichick and Tom Brady are on the team. Remember, last year at this time the big question was whether the Patriots could re-sign all three of their top 2017 free agents in Hightower, Jones, and Collins. Instead, they trade two of them, win a Super Bowl anyway, and may let Hightower walk this offseason.
Here are the Patriots’ free agent priorities, broken down into categories to more easily anticipate what the team will do this offseason. Starting off, here are the “High Priority Premier Players”: