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New England Patriots: Looking at Jerod Mayo restructure

By Kevin Parvizi

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The New England Patriots were unable to re-sign their star cornerback tandem of Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner, so they have a copious amount of cap space after not making any splash signings and receiving a hometown discount from elite free safety Devin McCourty. Even so, the Patriots are always understandably looking to cut money where it needs to be shaved off, as evidenced by their decision to let Vince Wilfork go this offseason after the big DT took a paycut last year.

Veteran linebacker Jerod Mayo has been one of the best players at the position over the past few seasons, but he’s also suffered season-ending injuries in back-to-back years. Simply put, the Patriots couldn’t justifiably keep an injury risk at $10.6 million per year, especially since both Jamie Collins and Dont’a Hightower emerged as even better players last season.

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However, it would have been just as harmful for the Patriots to release Mayo, who is a sure-fire starter and a talented player at a position the Pats don’t actually have any depth at. Mayo doesn’t make much of an impact on passing downs, but he can provide some solid delayed blitzes and is a tackling machine due to his instincts, range, and technique.

Even though he’s played in just six games in each of the past two seasons, Mayo still had a combined 108 tackles. If those numbers were extrapolated to a 16-game season, then he would have recorded 144 tackles, which is a total that mirrors his 147 takedowns in the 2012 season (he also had three sacks that year).

According to the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Mayo has signed a one-year, $4.5 million deal that is fully guaranteed, and incentives in the deal will make it possible for him to earn $6 million. Rapoport adds that there are two option years in this new deal between Mayo and the Pats, though it’s unclear if these are team or player options (although I am 99% sure it is a team option, because it would make absolutely no sense for Mayo to get any sort of an option).

A paycut was always the most logical outcome for a few reasons:

1. Mayo wisely put in a $4.5 million injury guarantee down-the-road when he first signed his old deal with the Patriots, so the Pats weren’t going to lose $4.5 million and an important linebacker.

2. Since the Pats won the Super Bowl last year and have been Mayo’s home for his entire career since he recorded 128 tackles as a rookie in 2008, staying around always seemed to be Mayo’s best option.

3. Even though he’s only 29 and has the ability to be a huge difference-maker at the heart of a defense, he’s also coming off of back-to-back injuries that might sap out his ability (thus potentially rendering him a significant liability in coverage, too). Essentially, he wouldn’t have made more money anywhere else if he were cut by the Patriots.

Mayo’s new deal with the New England Patriots ensures that he’ll still receive a fully guaranteed $4.5 million, and it will be interesting to see how feasible it is for Mayo to match the incentives. With Hightower and Collins blossoming, it will be difficult for Mayo to replicate his gaudy tackle totals, so any incentives based on individual performances might not be met. The Patriots won’t base incentives solely off of statistics, but incentives could be for end-of-season-awards, which are obviously heavily based on statistical output.

This deal is a win-win for both sides and a necessary/unsurprising outcome, and it’s worth noting that the Patriots threw in some more team options here. It’s likely that these team options involve a bloated amount of money that the Patriots are throwing in as an extremely unlikely sweetener, much like what they did with Revis last year.

The Pats probably don’t intend to keep Jerod Mayo around after this season on an option, but having the option in there probably gives Mayo even more motivation (and it may also helps them game the compensatory pick system by “losing” a player to free agency as opposed to “cutting them, so these options are the new wave).

Next: Patriots: The case for Todd Gurley

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