The New England Patriots entered the offseason as the NFL’s leaders in salary cap space, and they put their vast resources to work right away. As of Friday morning, and including the pre-free agency signing of outside linebacker Harold Landry, they have brought in 13 new players and re-signed eight of their own.
Not every one of the additions is factored into the equation yet, but we can still confidently say that the Patriots have plenty of cap space left to invest. According to calculations by salary cap expert Miguel Benzan, the team is almost $81 million under the cap with four free agent contracts yet to be accounted for.
Those deals — OL Wes Schweitzer, ED K’Lavon Chaisson, C Garrett Bradbury, LB Jack Gibbens — will eventually cut into the number. Even then, however, New England is likely to have upwards of $65 million left.
That amount, give or take a few million, is still significant and allows the team to remain quite flexible and aggressive in free agency. But while that also means they should remain competitive for whichever players they are targeting, they are confronted with the problem that the number of potential impact players remaining on the market has decreased and continues to do so quite rapidly.
The question then becomes, what the Patriots will do with their remaining cap space. There are still holes to be filled, as executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf acknowledged, but free agency as a means of addressing them is becoming far less reliable relative to the quality of talent left available.
Covering upcoming expenses
While we don’t quite know the Patriots’ current cap space due to the fact that not all of their contracts are accounted for yet, we do know how much money they will approximately need to keep around for future expenses this year. According to Miguel, that number is currently projected to be around $26.1 million.
It includes $6.86 million to sign the Patriots’ draft class plus additional rookie free agent signings, $5.25 million to set up and maintain a practice squad, $4.44 million in potential roster bonuses to be accounted for, $1.68 million for the salaries of the 52nd and 53rd players currently not counted against the cap, $7.5 million for replacing injured players or settlement payments, and $350,000 as part of David Andrews’ injury protection benefit.
The Patriots need to be mindful of those expenses, which in turn decrease their actual effective cap space $54.9 million not yet including the Schweitzer, Chaisson, Bradbury and Gibbens deals.
Pursuing second-tier free agents
The Patriots appeared to have entered free agency with a simple plan in mind: quickly go after the priority players, and then go to the scrap heap to address the roster’s overall lack of depth. That process has been a productive one for the organization, even though not all targeted players eventually ended up in Foxboro.
Nonetheless, the team reached agreements with seven players on the first day of the legal tampering period. It later added six more following the official start of free agency, although those mostly fall into that depth category mentioned above — a reflection of the state of the market at this point in time.
There are some noteworthy players left out there, including wide receiver Stefon Diggs, who just visited New England, but any splash signings via the open market should not be expected. Despite their vast amount of resources, the team has shown some restraint when it comes to spending.
“We don’t want to just be careless. We talked about there’s a difference. We want our players to play aggressive. We don’t want them to play reckless,” explained Mike Vrabel last week.
“We don’t want to be reckless through this process. We want to be very intentional with the people that we bring on this football team, and we’ll continue to target all those needs that we feel like and the players that can help us.”
Re-signing their own free agents
Only four members of the Patriots’ original 16-man free agency class remain unaccounted for. Running back JaMycal Hasty, offensive lineman Lester Cotton, edge defender Oshane Ximines and kicker Joey Slye have yet to sign either in New England or someplace else.
The Patriots could still bring any of them back — they certainly have the money to do so — but reunions with the quartet do not appear to be imminent at the moment. The team has not re-signed one of its free agents in more than a week, with Jaylinn Hawkins returning on a one-year deal last Wednesday as the most recent move in that regard.
Parts of New England’s current cap space going toward Hasty, Cotton, Ximines or Slye should therefore not be expected at this point in time.
Exploring the trade market
The Patriots having chunks of money available, plus one of the most valuable draft portfolios in the league this year, means that they are realistic candidates to get involved on the trade market. While they will once again not try to overspend, this will be the primary avenue to get veteran difference makers onto the roster moving forward.
So, who could they target? One name to watch is wideout Brandon Aiyuk.
The Patriots have had talks in regards to Aiyuk going back to last season; those conversations even reached the point of the team submitting an offer to the San Francisco 49ers. Nothing came of their interest at that point in time, but with New England still hell-bent on adding a true No. 1 wide receiver for quarterback Drake Maye it might be worth revisiting.
One date to watch in that regard is April 1. Aiyuk is due a $22.855 million bonus that day, and the 49ers would likely prefer trading him before that deadline — if they intend to trade him at all, given that they already moved on from Deebo Samuel earlier this offseason.
There has been smoke on the Aiyuk front for a while now, but he might not be the only player worth keeping an eye on. Fellow wide receiver A.J. Brown — who spent time under Mike Vrabel in Tennessee before getting traded to Philadelphia — is a player the team could envision adding, for example.
Other targets who would make sense are tight ends Michael Mayer and Kyle Pitts as well as defensive linemen Jefferey Simmons and Bryce Huff.
The biggest question from a Patriots perspective will be what kind of assets the team would be willing to move on from. Backup quarterback Joe Milton, for whom New England reportedly wants a third-round draft pick or equivalent value, could be part of a package; the team also has four picks in the top 100 selections of the draft.
Eliot Wolf repeatedly mentioned a “draft and develop” mindset when he took over as de facto general manager last year. With Mike Vrabel coming aboard as head coach, however, there appears to be more urgency to acquire talent.
Whether that leads to any trades remains to be seen, but the Patriots have the resources to be aggressive.
Giving out contract extensions
Even with the first waves of free agency in the books, the Patriots’ roster has some obvious shortcomings — a reflection of a squad that entered the offseason short on talent. This, in turn, is the result of some insufficient drafting and roster management going all the way back to the final years of the Bill Belichick era.
In turn, there are not a lot of clear-cut roster extension candidates at the moment. Maybe the team feels strongly about some of its 2026 free agents such as offensive linemen Vederian Lowe and Cole Strange, linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley, or cornerback/punt returner Marcus Jones; they could be signed to extensions at any point in time. Maybe 2027 free agent Michael Onwenu is due another investment, too.
However, there is no indication of any of that being in the works at the moment. More likely, it seems that contract extensions at the same scale as last season — when several players were re-signed even before their deals were up — will not happen anytime soon.
Rolling over to 2026
Now, this is where things get interesting if a bit boring. The Patriots could simply decide not to spend to the cap this season and instead roll a significant part of its cap space into the future.
There is a strong argument for that, too. Several important players will be eligible for contract extensions next offseason, headed by star cornerback Christian Gonzalez — a player who very well could command more than the record-breaking $30 million-per-year deal signed by Houston’s Derek Stingley Jr. earlier this week.
Other members of the Patriots’ 2023 draft class who can be signed to extensions in the spring of 2026 include defensive lineman Keion White, wide receivers DeMario Douglas and Kayshon Boutte, and punter Bryce Baringer. While only the latter currently looks like a realistic candidate for a top-of-the-market deal, the numbers can add up and quickly eat into New England’s 2026 cap space.
The Patriots therefore using parts of their 2025 resources to bolster their financial potency next year would make sense, and also help satisfy NFL rules.
Teams, after all, need to meet the league’s 90 percent minimum spending requirement over a three-year period. The current period started last year, meaning that New England would have to spend significantly over threshold in 2026 in case the team rolls large parts of its current cap space over.