A Salary Cap Expert Explains How the Patriots are 'a Well-Oiled Machine' With Everything They Need to Get Even Better in 2026

When your football team has gone from "BAD?" and third from the bottom on Dan's Power Rankings after Week 1 to "Super Bowl Contenders" on the second tier from the top in the span of just 10 weeks, you typically just take that progress, embrace the positivity, and feel good about living in the moment. The future can be concerned about itself for the time being. 

Afterall, Patriots fans have spent the last three Novembers in a row coming to the realization of how fruitless it all is, rooting for losses, and looking at the horizon for any kind of hope of a bright future. That's a loser mentality, but that word applied to us. It was our lot in life. It wasn't a lot, but it was our life. 

Well coming out of the mini-bye week created by a Thursday night game, with Cincinnati up next and possibly having to play without Ja'Marr Chase, it's not the worst time to look ahead. Because not only are the Pats currently the No. 2 seed in the AFC, a favorable schedule, and their actual bye coming up before they face the Bills at Gillette, their offseason is already shaping up to be another incredible one:

Heavy - The Patriots certainly spent in the offseason in such a way as to indicate they are serious about getting things turned around. They shelled out more than $300 million in free-agent contract, with well over $120 million in guaranteed money. ...

And what’s more, they were careful with how they structured deals so that, when they arrive at next winter’s free-agent market, they will be positioned to create another $100 million in space to spend and add. 

At Spotrac, the contract-expert site, editor Mike Ginnitti gushed this week about where the Patriots are and, more important, where they are headed, especially with a spike in the NFL salary cap expected.

“They have set themselves up for a little bit more free-agency, draft, extension space in 2026, and I guess that’s where I will switch my focus. …” Ginnitti said on “The Spotrac Podcast.” “The Top 51 space looks pretty darn good, there is $66 million and change to work with, that’s with 44 contracts on the books and a few of those could fall off.”

The Patriots are in good shape.

“It’s a well-oiled machine with one of the best quarterbacks in football,” Ginnitti said.

So just a year after rebuilding the roster with 11 draft picks, five of whom are full time starters, plus the kicker and long snapper, and getting an absolute haul in free agency, from Stefon Diggs, Mack Hollins, Garrett Bradbury and Morgan Moses on offense and Milton Williams, Carlton Davis, Robert Spillane, K'Lavon Chaisson, Harold Landry and Khyiris Tonga on defense, they've done so while leaving themselves in position to go even harder in the paint in 2026. 

I won't begin to pretend I understand how any of this works. Salary cap talk is one of those obtuse, archane, jargon-filled subjects that only true experts who focus on such things can comprehend. Listening to one of them talk about is a reminder of my own ignorance on the topic, like when my financial planner shows me charts to explain the markets, my mechanic points under the hood to the different parts that need replacing, or my doctor pulls out test results that prove I'm rapidly killing myself, I just nod and pretend to understand. 

So here, I'll nod and pretend to understand what this expert is saying. That even while the Patriots are in the midst of collecting skulls on a chain and preparing for the final third of the regular season and beyond, they've laid a foundation where they can keep getting better. Even though they've already exceeded their win total from the past two seasons combined, this is only the beginning. They'll have the money to extend Christian Gonzalez, and eventually Drake Maye. And keep building around each of them on both sides of the ball. 

So I say again to the rest of the country who hated this team for the past 25 years. I hope you made the most of watching them fail from 2020-24. It's going to be the only chance you'll get for the foreseeable future.