There are multiple position groups the New England Patriots could look to bolster ahead of Tuesday’s 4 p.m. ET trade deadline, but they do not have an unlimited budget to work with.
The Patriots entered deadline day with just $2.38 million in salary cap space, according to Miguel Benzan of Boston Sports Journal, limiting their options as they search for potential upgrades at tight end, offensive line or wide receiver.
Head coach Bill Belichick offered an in-depth explanation of these cap restrictions during his Tuesday morning conference call.
“The answer is (the salary cap) would definitely affect us,” Belichick said. “We wouldn’t have enough cap space right now to just go out and acquire any player that was available regardless of what the price was in terms of compensation. We would have to fit him under our cap, and there are some players we just wouldn’t be able to do that with. You really can’t change the contract. I mean, that wouldn’t happen until tomorrow, so it would have had to have already been done previously. So (if) the team knew they were going to trade a player and wanted to change his contract to make him more attractive in the trade, that would have really already had to have been done.
“As it stands today, you’d have to have enough salary cap space. Any team would have to have enough salary cap space to acquire the new player. If you didn’t, then you would have to release a player to pick that up, and there’s certainly a lot of limitations to releasing players — especially vested players and so forth — where you really don’t gain much cap space from those kinds of transactions. It’s a factor.
“Again, it would depend on the player and the salary and what your other options were on the team and how big of a gap you’re talking about in order to be able to make all of that work. Certainly, we have to account for the rest of the season. It’s unrealistic to think we’re not going to have any additional salary cap charges in the next eight weeks. We have to have some type of a cushion or budget to handle those, some of those anticipated expenses. We don’t know exactly what that number is going to be, but there are a number of things that could come into play there. Yeah, it’s definitely part of the conversation. No question.”
To recap:
— While it is possible for teams to restructure contracts to make trades more palatable, those changes can’t be initiated on deadline day.
— Simply releasing a player midseason typically doesn’t free up much salary cap space, especially if that player is a vested veteran.
— Teams regularly sign free agents during the second half of the season to improve their roster, replace an injured player, etc., so they don’t want to blow all of their cap space on a deadline acquisition.
“If you had an expense that you had to be able to pay for, then you’d have to find a way to pay for it,” Belichick continued. “At the same time, there are going to be some expenses going forward for every team for the remainder of the season, so you have to anticipate those and figure out how you’re going to handle those or what you’re going to do about them. So that’s just part of the overall planning.
“I don’t think you can get it right down to the penny by any sense, but you’d have a budget and a range and that’s where you’d work in. There’s a possibility of restructuring players on your own team or releasing them for salary cap space and things like that. Again, there’s multiple options there. How good those options are, I mean, that’s a whole other conversation. But just from strictly a financial point of view, that’s really what you’d be looking at.”
The Patriots already completed two trades last week, acquiring receiver Mohamed Sanu from the Atlanta Falcons for a second-round draft pick and dealing defensive end Michael Bennett to the Dallas Cowboys for a late-round conditional selection.
