Hey, what's up everybody?

Welcome into Tomp.

Patriots Talk podcast, Phil Perry alongside.

We are driving headlong towards free agency and the Patriots

have pulled the rig cord on Stefan Diggs. The finances of it are very interesting. Phil will be

discussed that. More interesting, though, is the timing and what it signals. Patriots now are going

to have a projected $55 million in cap space with free agency due to

begin next week.

And that's according to over the cap.

$55 million puts them easily in the top 10.

The savings on digs against the cap is $16 million.

He was going to have a $20 million salary.

He was going to count $20 million, excuse me, $26 million when almost said none.

So now they're going to save $16 million, $9 million dead cap hit.

All of that, great, bookkeeping.

The obvious question that now comes clear is, what's the plan?

I mean, the Patriots are smart people. They're now extracting 80 plus catches and over

a thousand yards from their offense for a team that went to the Super Bowl and still has aspirations of building

so that it becomes a perennial contender. They're not elite. They're trying to get there.

They were trying to get to mediocre. They leapfrog it. Now they're trying to get to elite and

contender status. Someone's going to have to make up that difference, though.

You can't walk in with a straight face and say, we're just going to do this.

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