It's now March 26 and there's still no contract extension or restructuring of Tom Brady's contract.
The 40-year-old is signed through 2019, but he has extremely high cap hits the next two seasons. This year it's $22 million and it will be the same next year, too. In the past, when Brady has two years left on his deal he signs an extension to spread the cap hits out.
Most recently, it occurred in 2013 and then 2016. Both times it happened before free agency began.
Since 2014, Brady has had a cap hit of roughly $14 million, but as of now that isn't the case for 2018.
It's hard to know the exact reason why there's been no extension or restructuring, and it certainly could still happen before the start of the season, but the fact it hasn't happened yet is an even further indication things aren't what they once were in Foxboro.
(Robert Kraft is scheduled to address the media Monday at the NFL owners meetings in Orlando and maybe an answer is given, but as of now it still remains unclear.)
Even if Brady did something to his deal now, no one knows for sure how it would have impacted the way the Patriots approached free agency. Say he lowered it to $14 million before free agency like it's been in the past, the Patriots would have had $8 million more in cap space to work with.
Maybe if they had that $8 million they could have made a more aggressive offer to a player like Danny Amendola.
It's clear how valued Amendola is in New England and to Brady specifically — just look at Brady speaking with Rob Gronkowski in the final episode of Tom vs. Time following the AFC title game.
The wide out has been able to produce in the biggest of situations whether it's a big third down, a key play in a game, or just his overall production in the postseason.
In 69 regular season games with Patriots, Amendola totaled 230 catches (3.3/game), 2,383 yards (34.5/game) and 12 touchdowns. In 13 playoff games with Patriots, he's totaled 57 catches (4.4/game), 709 yards (54.5/game) and six touchdowns.
Amendola signed a two-year deal with the Dolphins for $12 million with $8.25 guaranteed. While it seems highly unlikely the Patriots would have offered the same contract, with $8 million extra in cap space they could have put forward a more competitive offer and at least given Amendola something to think about.
The 32-year-old has taken pay cut after pay cut to remain in New England the last several seasons so the fact he bolted to Miami so quickly says he wasn't even given a reasonable offer from the Patriots.
If the money was somewhat comparable, it's hard to imagine him leaving New England.
Amendola has tremendous chemistry with Brady and then his best friend in the NFL is Julian Edelman. He's said for years how at this stage of his career it's about him being happy and having the chance to win, which makes it even more puzzling why he left the Patriots.
A poor offer from the team could be one of a few reasons, and if the team had more than $20-ish million of cap space at the start of free agency, maybe the Patriots could have put forth a better offer.
The same can be said for Nate Solder.
While Solder got much, much more money than Amendola, as he's now the highest-paid left tackle in football, it seems the Patriots weren't even among the final three teams in the running for Solder's services.
Perhaps, if Brady didn't carry a $22 million cap hit they could have been.
With all that being said, it's hard to blame Brady for not giving in and doing what the team wants him to do.
For years he has been the perfect team player taking much less than his competitors for the better of the team, but look what the team did to him this season — his personal training guru was banned from the building and he even needed to get treatment in a suite before one of the final regular season games. And then there was the ESPN story, which painted the quarterback in a very negative-light.
Why would Brady want to do the team any more favors after all that?
It's hard to definitively say if Brady had lowered his cap hit before free agency the Patriots would have retained one of Amendola or Solder, but there's no question it would have made it more of a possibility.
