On Monday Tom Brady signed a contract extension that will make him a Patriot for life. He signed a three-year $27 million contract extension that will make him 40-years-old at the deals end.
The deal creates a serious amount of cap space for the Patriots over the next two seasons. It amounts to about $7 million per season. In an off-season where there are a lot of teams close to the cap, this may be an off-season unprecedented to Patriots fans.
Besides helping the Patriots, the 36-year-old Brady gave himself some security. Before signing the deal, Brady had two years and about $30 million left. Now he has $57 million that's fully guaranteed in case of injury.
Brady's salary got lowered from $9.7 million to $1 million and $2 million in 2013 and 2014 respectively. If Brady is on the roster after the last game of 2014 the money left on the deal is fully guaranteed.
Its a win--win for both sides, the Patriots get the cap space that they wanted, and Brady got some long term security. When you're getting into the latter point in your career, you never know what may happen, even though he is married to the multi millionaire supermodel Gisele Bundchen.
He did give the Patriots a little bit of a discount. As his salary is not even close to other top quarterbacks like Drew Brees and Peyton Manning for example, who all make close to $20 million annually.
Brady realizes his window is closing, so he wants to add to his already illustrious career. Clearing another $7 million in cap lets the patriots add a top tier free agent like Greg Jennings or Dwayne Bowe. Or they could keep their in house talent, which includes Brady's safety blanket, Wes Welker.
He already has enough money than he would ever ask for, so why not try and become the best quarterback to ever step foot on an NFL field?
The Patriots were so close last year to going to their third Super Bowl in six years. Their offense was one of the best in NFL history. I think they need to stay status quo on offense and use that $7 million on defense.
There is a lot of talent on the market this year like cornerback Brent Grimes, and there's not a lot of teams that can pay them big money. You might be able to get two aging, but productive stars at that. Add to this defense; give the already productive-but-young talent some veterans that you can depend on when its third down or in the playoffs.
Enjoy this while you can because you may never see this again: a top two player at his position taking a home town discount. As TB 12 said on his Facebook page yesterday, all that he wants to do is "Just Win."
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