New England Patriots head Jerod Mayo hasn't been at the job for long, but he's already taking back a comment he made about the team's free agency plans.
Mayo poured a bit of cold water on his quote from January that the Patriots were “ready to burn some cash” in free agency this offseason. The head coach admitted that he might gotten a bit carried away when he saw how much cap space the team would have, via Karen Guregian of MassLive.
“You know, I kind of misspoke when I said ‘burn some cash’ but I was excited when you see those numbers,” Mayo said. “But when you reflect on those numbers … you don’t have to spend all of it in one year.
“This is going to be a process,” he added. “So I don’t want people to think, ‘you got 60 million dollars, 70 million, whatever, so let’s get this guy, that guy, that guy … it may work for a couple games, or maybe a season, but it won’t work long term.”
Even though Mayo is signaling that the Patriots might not spend as freely as he once indicated, they have plenty of cash to use as they'd like. Following the announcement that the salary cap would be just over $255 million, the Patriots are set to have $86.9 million in cap space. They can easily get to over $100 million in cap room if they released struggling corner J.C. Jackson.
Mayo has already pointed to quarterback, offensive tackle and wide receiver as needs for the team, but there aren't many great options at those positions. Kirk Cousins leads the way for quarterbacks, but he's coming off a torn Achilles.
The list of wide receivers who'll hit the open market appears to be slimming as the Cincinnati Bengals has franchise-tagged Tee Higgins and the Indianapolis Colts might do the same with Michael Pittman.
At offensive tackle, two Patriots players might be the best free agents at that position. Trent Brown seems to be as good as gone after how last season went though, leaving to question what will happen with Michael Onwenu.
What Jerod Mayo said of the Patriots re-signing Michael Onwenu, Kyle Dugger
Mayo didn't hide his thoughts on sharing his desire for Onwneu and Dugger to return.
“Those are two humongous targets,” Mayo said. “I would love to have those guys back.”
It's unclear if the Patriots will use the franchise tag on either player. Dugger is the cheaper option to franchise tag, holding a $17,123,000 tender while Onwenu's is $20,985,000. But it really shouldn't matter considering the Patriots' cap space this offseason.
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